Athlon64~SPARTA~ Posted November 13, 2007 Share Posted November 13, 2007 ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT Graphics Card Had the long wait been worth it? Honestly, we don't think so. ATI kept their fans waiting for the Radeon HD 2000 cards, promising better performance than NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 series of graphics cards. However, for all that delay, their flagship Radeon HD 2900 XT cannot even beat the GeForce 8800 GTX (released over six months earlier) in performance, much less the GeForce 8800 Ultra. For a graphics card that spent so much time in development, we expected a really refined card. Well, it is and it isn't. It is the first graphics card we know to use expensive digital power regulation for greater efficiency and a cleaner board design. It also conveniently includes an onboard audio processor which allows you to stream video and audio together to your HDTV via a HDMI cable. This is a feature not yet found on any other graphics card. However, power consumption is still prodigious, so much so that ATI had to use a new 8-pin power connector to supplement the first 6-pin power connector. This new connector had many users groaning in frustration as most power supplies only ship with two standard 6-pin power cables. The card will still run at full speed if you just use two 6-pin power cables, but it's advisable for you to switch one of them to a 8-pin power cable to reduce the load on your power cables. The increased power consumption also meant increased thermal output. We are glad to report that ATI has done a pretty good job of it here. The cooler is large, as expected, but the fan is fortuitously quiet in comparison to the fans ATI used in the past. We did not experience any stability issues even in these hot and humid conditions, but overclocking may not be easy due to the amount of heat produced. We recently retested the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT with a slew of new DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 games and of course, new drivers! We also threw the new NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT into the mix. Unfortunately for ATI, the new NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT totally blew away the Radeon HD 2900 XT. The NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT may not offer an incredible boost in speed over the Radeon HD 2900 XT but it is much cheaper. With the advent of the far more cost-effective NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT, there is no longer a valid reason for gamers to buy the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT, unless of course they are rabid ATI fans. Even throwing in a free Valve game bundle (Half-Life 2 : Episode 2, Team Fortress 2 and Portal) to sweeten the deal isn't going to work. If ATI wants to move their Radeon HD 2900 XT inventory, they will need to start cutting its price at least by half, and that's what we think they will do very, very soon. So, if you are looking to buy the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT, wait a while. ATI will drastically slash its price soon to stay c Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Punisher~SPARTA~ Posted November 13, 2007 Share Posted November 13, 2007 Dont ATI have 2 new cards coming out on Thursday? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoScream~SPARTA~ Posted November 13, 2007 Share Posted November 13, 2007 To be honest I'm so happy with my Nv 8800 GTX cards that, I'm not up to speed with anything new, also COD4 & Crysis for example have been in bed with Nvidia and drivers are made on the fly...... I hope Ati Drivers are good with the new cards. Remember Nvidia, Intel ate product partners and will give their products preference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Punisher~SPARTA~ Posted November 13, 2007 Share Posted November 13, 2007 Im in terrible need for an upgrade, so this midrange cards coming out from Nvidia and ATI may be my saving grace. I read somewhere that the new 8800GT is going to perform a little better then its ATI counterpart, but suffers in the quality in some places in Crysis. But who knows really, the card isnt even out yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sopris_EBDA Posted November 13, 2007 Share Posted November 13, 2007 All I can say is I am not suprised, look at who ATI is owned by, AMD. And look at their products, still 6-12+ months behind intels technology. They have a long road ahead of them to make up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Punisher~SPARTA~ Posted November 13, 2007 Share Posted November 13, 2007 Im praying ATI or AMD have something up there sleeves to overtake Intel or Nvidia or things are going start getting a little expensive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athlon64~SPARTA~ Posted November 13, 2007 Author Share Posted November 13, 2007 (edited) Well historicly wile intell was at a holt and AMD was kicking their butts for the last 2 years intell was sneekingly comming out with the core 2. So now intell is enjoying the lime light, not buy much, and really not buy much if not at all with the relrease of the AMD 6400+ black edition with a no set limit on the multiplyer. like the FX62 that was the fastest chipp on the planet or still may be, they are hideing in the back ground like intell did fixing to release a butt kicking cpu with a 1207 socket. We can be sure of that. Its a head to head compition and they will go back and forth one beating the outher untill we get tired of it. But invidia has got them beat and will probley stay that way due to they are fixing to release the 9200gt and later the 9800gt and the ultra. When will it end. Edited November 13, 2007 by Athlon64~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
az_sniper_EBDA Posted November 14, 2007 Share Posted November 14, 2007 ATI selling themselves to AMD was the death of them IMO. The acquisition happened near the end of development of the R600 based cards so I believe ATI employee's were probably to busy worrying about if they would have a job than properly finishing the product. The insane power requirements of the R600 gpu screams inefficiency, I think with refinements the R600 has the potential to beat the standard 8800GTX, however it will probably never happen. IMO the X1950XTX 512 cards are the last great thing they did. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matty_EBDA Posted November 14, 2007 Share Posted November 14, 2007 If the Barcelona-based quad-core consumer chips are as competitive as the Barcelona quad-core Opterons, than we should see a return to a valid two manufacturer cpu market. The next generation of nVidia and ATI motherboard chipsets using DDR3 and supporting Hyper thread 2.0 and PCIeX16 2.0 will also help to balance out the marketplace. It was AMD and ATI moving into the pre-built Dells and HPs that really drove their growth over the last few years. If their new motherboards and processors can capture a decent share of that marketplace away from intel again, they should have deep enough pockets to go to tighter manufacturing tolerances (like Intel's 45nm Penryn), and develop more products. It's the mass market for consumer-grade pablum that fuels the development of enthusiast components. It's just a "wait and see" for now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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