AMD's Radeon HD 2900 XT Reviewed

J. Dzhugashvili writes "The folks at The Tech Report have whipped up a detailed expose of the new AMD Radeon HD 2900 XT graphics card's architecture and features, with plenty of benchmarks. While the card dazzles with 320 stream processors, a 512-bit memory bus, and oodles of memory bandwidth, its performance and power consumption seem disappointing in the face of Nvidia's six-month-old GeForce 8800 graphics cards."

Comments

Let's hope

[xx01dk]

this drives down prices. I still want an 8800GTX. :)

Re:Let's hope

[gormanly]

I still want a comparison of every DX10 card available, running a selection of say 10 of the most popular games from the last 3 years with all the pretty options turned up to the max, on XP and on Vista, in both a top-end God Box and a typical 18-month old good-but-not-outstanding-for-its-age PC.

2 tables of aggregate fps scores at the beginning not the end, one for XP and one for Vista, each with one row per card and 4 columns: normal PC @1280x1024; normal PC @1600x1200; god box @1280x1024; god box @1600x1200.

That would be a useful review. And if AMD and NVIDIA want to give me samples of their wares and the funds for the god box I'll happily do it and write the article for y'all ...

Re:Let's hope

[Psiven]

You can do pretty well estimating your performance if you have a general understanding of how your components work together.

First measure FPS in your favorite app at the lowest resolution. That's the measure of your CPU bottleneck. No matter how nice of a GPU you buy, you'll never get higher FPS than that.

Memory is one of those things you can never have enough. Just don't worry about the bandwidth too much. Your only going to squeeze out just a few frames per second with top of the line RAM. Just watch to see if your comp is hitting the hard drive much and consider more if it is.

Most new games are still GPU limited and this is where you want to focus your attention. Look for benchmarks at resolutions you play at. This is a good baseline of what to expect. Anything over 60fps avg I tend to be happy with, but you may want consider the minimum too. Right now the only benchmarks I've really been interested in are of Rainbow Six: Vegas. It uses the Unreal 3 Engine, and a lot of games are coming out that are going to be using it too. Other benchmarks might be important to you as well, but they tend to rank in the hundreds and so you know performance won't be an issue.

Re:Let's hope

[MukiMuki]

To the parent : Oh man, if only. That's been my major gripes about most review sites :

1. There are games out there other than FEAR, Doom3/Quake4, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and Oblivion. In fact, there's a FUCK-TON more games than that. Go to PC IGN or gamespot or something for FIVE MINUTES OF YOUR DAY and find at least ONE game that everyone and their dog hasn't seen figures for.
2. Nothing pisses me off more than a review for a bottom-of-the-barrel budget card where the test system runs like two fucking grand. This was more of a problem a few years ago, with the GeForce 2MX, when not having a maxed-out PIII or P4 made a DRASTIC difference in the lack of a T&L unit on a comparably priced board, a difference we never saw because the test system was the nicest thing out on the street. Seriously, that shit needs to STOP.

To the grandparent :

Sadly, this drove prices UP. (literally, the day the HD 2900 came out, the cheapest GeForce 8800GTS 320MB, which was hovering steady at 280, jumped to 300 everywhere). =(

Question is, I wonder if the HD 2900 will tip the scales when DX10 games come out. It seems to me that the SuperScalar vs Scalar architecture differences would tip in AMD's favor when they get bombarded by the shader overload that DX10 games promise.

Re:Let's hope

[Chris whatever]

60 fps?

Hum,,,after 30 fps, you dont see any difference or choppy movement as long as it's constant, for sure more is better if it's going to vary depending on the game you play or how many millions of triangle it's calculating, the human eye doesnt see any difference at 60 fps, nor at 100 fps.

that's the same thing with 24 bit and 32 bit color,,,,24 is enough to depict and see real pictures with perfect resolution 32 is overkill

Re:Let's hope

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

"still want a comparison of every DX10 card available, running a selection of say 10 of the most popular games from the last 3 years with all the pretty options turned up to the max, on XP and on Vista, in both a top-end God Box and a typical 18-month old good-but-not-outstanding-for-its-age PC."

How many DX10 games are there at the moment? My x800XT runs all of the most popular games from the last 3 years with all the pretty options set to max.

That said, I am getting an 8800 for my next rig.

Re:Let's hope

[19thNervousBreakdown]

This comes up every single time, so forgive me if I'm not as polite about it as I could be.

The human eye sees ~25-30fps, true, but it does not sample the same way your monitor outputs it. The human eye refreshes at that rate, which means anything that's seen for less than that amount of time leaves a partial imprint. Thus, the motion blur you see when something, even in real life, goes by really fast. Since the monitor is outputting static frames, you don't get that partial imprint, and it looks choppy. Television, on the other hand, does pick up the motion blur, because of the way the cameras work. There are a number of studies showing that we benefit from higher FPS, up to and over 100 sometimes.

Also, there's really no such thing as 32-bit color. I suppose you could put a different number of bits for RGB, and many schemes do, but the 32-bit you're thinking about is RGBA. 24-bit is the exact same thing, without the alpha channel, and we also benefit from far more colors than current hardware outputs, because the current 16.7m colors that are output don't account for much luminosity, and for plenty of other reasons I don't care to look up right now.

When you try to stick your hand through the monitor and pick up a Coke, or catch a running kitten, that's when you can say we've got enough. Until then, please try to at least understand the subject you're discussing, and not try to come off as authoritative when you don't even know what 32-bit color means.

Re:Let's hope

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

"Hum,,,after 30 fps, you dont see any difference or choppy movement as long as it's constant, for sure more is better if it's going to vary depending on the game you play or how many millions of triangle it's calculating, the human eye doesnt see any difference at 60 fps, nor at 100 fps."

Not quite true. Do some research before quoting the same myth that everyone quotes.
Check out this link for more.

Re:Let's hope

[springbox]

There's a huge difference between 30 and 60 frames per second. At 60 FPS everything looks a lot smoother and things have a more fluid movement to them. And as far as color is concerned, at a 32 bit color depth the only thing you're gaining is an alpha channel and a color that fits nicely into 4 bytes instead of 3. Now, your typical desktop computer isn't going to use that last byte to represent more colors (most should just consider the fourth byte as a "don't care" value unless they're doing something fancy with it), so from the user's perspective there's actually no difference between a 24-bit and 32-bit color depth. Computers like it better though. 4 is a power of 2.

Re:Let's hope

[Mdentari]

Well said. As an arcade fan I could very well notice the difference on some arcade games such as Virtua Fighter 2 which runs just under 60 FPS compared to games like Tekken 2 while not choppy were not as smooth. Studies done with airforce pilots show that some could recognize aircraft shown once in every 220 fps.

Re:Let's hope

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish people would stop spouting this lie, and just let it die. The human eye is not limited to any tangible amount of FPS. The human eye is analogue. PERIOD.

http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_s ee.htm

Enjoy.

Re:Let's hope

[Barlo_Mung_42]

"There are a number of studies showing that we benefit from higher FPS, up to and over 100 sometimes"

doesn't it also depend on the display though? If my LCD is running at 60 hertz anything over 60fps wont make it past that bottle neck.

Re:Let's hope

[lordSaurontheGreat]

Those aren't really good measurable benchmarks you've chosen. The best benchmark is knowing how the hardware works. A big item to look at is the number of pixel pipelines (my GeForce 7800 GS OC can beat the crap out of a 8500 because it has 16 pixel pipelines) and the shading engine support. More and more applications are using less geometry (because it complicates the physics) and more shading and higher-resolution textures to attain graphical nirvana. The better the shader engine and the more pixel pipelines the better the card will perform. The truth is that there is already so much memory bandwidth that there really isn't much that can slow down there unless you're building your own custom game with a nastily written renderer.

In addition, your benchmark sort of requires that you buy the card and test it or rely on the tests of other people. Those other people can actually be biased (gasp - it's like they're human or something!)

Re:Let's hope

[Chris whatever]

Not everyone has a degree in crt monitor mind you but thanks for the explanation even though it took all your short change to write this.

Whatever knowledge you have, you cant expect the rest of the world to know, but i guess that true geeks are snobs anyways

Re:Let's hope

[Chris whatever]

there you got it

the same myth that everyone quotes,,,i'm part of everyone and used the knowledge i had, or thought was o.k, i did not think i needed a college degree.

And if by any chance any human here can see 16.7 million color and point them to me i'll shake his hands.

I'm gamer myself and frankly i dont see any difference between 60 fps and 100 fps. the game aint smoother or better, higher frame rate to me just means that when it gets heavy on cpu and memory thw lowest FPS i'll get will be higher than 30.

Re:Let's hope

[Chris whatever]

Wow your kids must learn a lot with you

by talking down to anyone you dont know, your a jerk, and i was not saying anything like it was the asboluute truth, you read things betwwen lines that arent there.

Re:Let's hope

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Chris, I used to think that I wanted to have kids someday, but the risk that I might end up with someone like you as the fruit of my loins terrifies me. I'd like to think that I'd raise them better than that, and that they'd #1 - not parrot "facts" they heard from "everybody" so that they never have to deal with a jerk like me, and #2 - know how to deal with a jerk like me--but most likely, I'd end up raising a mouth-breathing illiterate who cries himself to sleep every night because daddy doesn't even seem to recognize him when he drinks, and mommy, even though she still walks around and sometimes even talks, left a long time ago.

Strangely it's Nivida with sucky drivers right now

[Anonymous Coward]

At least on Windows. I got a free el-cheepo x1300 which I ended up replacing my GF6600 with. Sure the latter scored better in 3D Mark whatever, but at the cost of jerky frame rates in non-mainstay games. Such as Outrun 2006 (Which is a bit odd since I heard Sega use the GF6600 in their arcade machine).

Anyway, while these x2900 do not seem to be great performers I suspect their Vista drivers are better. As a Vista user the GF8800 is right now out of the question, less the driver situation have changed recently.

Whomever gets good DX10 drivers out first, got a sale from me.

What has AMD done with ATI

[MountainMan101]

AMD/ATI losing out to nVidia in the extreme power cards.
AMD/ATI losing out to Intel with the onboard graphics.

nVidia has a better closed source linux driver than ATI.

At the moment the only appeal of ATI is there mediocre graphics cards have open source 2D+3D drivers on Linux with R200(helped by ATI) or R300(no help from ATI/AMD) drivers.

At the moment AMD's best strategy is to build some fantastic onboard graphics chips for their AMD processors and try and beat nVidia by basically making and AMD chip + on board graphics as brilliant combination (ie no need to add an aftermarket card).

Re:What has AMD done with ATI

[prefect42]

I think you need to credit ATI with these accomplishments and not try to blame AMD. nvidia have had the uppper hand for a long time if you're happy with closed source drivers. By the time you're looking at the workstation cards then it's even more obvious, as the FireGL line really do suck compared to the Quadros. I was really disappointed when SGI teamed up with ATI for their graphics cards, as there was never much hope of it ending well (and it didn't).

Re:What has AMD done with ATI

[InsertCleverUsername]

There are problems at AMD/ATI in addition to falling behind the competition. I have a recurring problem ticket I re-opened recently at ATI Support where I got a little bitchy and suggested I'd be going back to NVIDIA if they couldn't get their act together. (I must admit my ticket was mostly a complaint about sloppy work, since I already hacked my system registry and fixed their issue.) Judging from their response to the ticket, I'd say there might be an attitude problem developing there as well.

We respect your decision to follow your prerogatives regarding future product selection preferences. Thank you.

AMD Customer Care

Gallows humor from people who don't see a long future for their jobs perhaps?

Re:What has AMD done with ATI

[gad_zuki!]

AMD competes on price, not necessarily performance. If they lose the enthusiast market completely they will still remain pretty profitable. Their strategy has always been price and courting OEMs with their cheap chips, and now graphics cards.

The price of the 8800 right now is what most people pay for a desktop computer and monitor. All this hand-wringing over high-end performance marginal gains is no different than the "Ford vs Chevy' nonsense the pickup-truck crowd is always going off about.

Bah

[drsquare]

Graphics cards are all too expensive anyway. You shouldn't have to pay more than the actual processor just to draw pictures on the screen.

Re:Bah

[maxwell demon]

You don't even need a processor to draw pictures on the screen. A simple permanent marker suffices.

Re:Bah

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh you can. You only need to make a processor-to-VGA converter cable. This should be trivial for someone with your intelligence level.

Re:Bah

[dsginter]

You don't even need a processor to draw pictures on the screen.

A real hacker doesn't even need a screen - they just stick their tongue on the HD15* cable and imagine what the screen looks like from the electrical pulses.

(*) Get off of my LAWN!

Re:Bah

[eXFeLoN]

I must draw the same picture on my screen 60+ per second...

Re:Bah

[Lorkki]

The CPU doesn't have its own on-board memory (besides cache) or a high-speed DAC part, and the motherboard provides all of its other auxiliary circuitry. Bundle all of that on the same board and you have your explanation for the expensiveness of high-end cards.

Re:Bah

[Hoi Polloi]

Bah, REAL, 733t hackers just look at the code and picture the graphics output in their head.

Re:Bah

[pipingguy]

And Undo is Whiteout?

Ob

[Bastard of Subhumani]

Does it run on Linux?

Re:Ob

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately it doesn't.

Re:Ob

[ettlz]

Let me rephrase. "Hey! AMD! You gonna tell the rest of the world how to program the motherfucker?" There.

Re:Ob

[wild_berry]

I'd answer "not yet" -- I'm sure that there's a memory management unit on the chip, so don't be surprised if someone does a port...

Re:Ob

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I heard it runs on electricity...

This is why we need open source 3D drivers...

[kcbrown]

While the card dazzles with 320 stream processors, a 512-bit memory bus, and oodles of memory bandwidth, its performance and power consumption seem disappointing in the face of Nvidia's six-month-old GeForce 8800 graphics cards.

The hardware probably screams. But ATI has a reputation for really shitty drivers. Without solid, fast, high-quality drivers, fast hardware doesn't matter as much.

NVidia has typically produced fast drivers. They're not open-source, but they're at least good.

If ATI can't get its shit together and write some decent drivers, the only reasonable option for them would be to open-source their 3D drivers so that the community can fix them properly. And I expect the community would do just that, because a lot of developers are also avid PC gamers, so they have a personal stake in it.

It'll be interesting to see where this heads, given the statements made by ATI about open-sourcing their drivers, but I'm not going to hold my breath over it. For now, it's NVidia for my gaming rigs. That'll change as soon as ATI actually open-sources their full 3D drivers.

Re:This is why we need open source 3D drivers...

[ThirdPrize]

Does make you wonder what sort of company it is that can't really write drivers for its own hardware? The whole idea of them borrowing NV's archietecture in the first place was to simplify driver writing. graphics card + crap drivers = waste of electricity.

Re:This is why we need open source 3D drivers...

[dave420]

If it's even possible to open-source them. If there's proprietary licensed technology in them, it might be a non-starter. Not all closed-source is so because of ideology...

Re:This is why we need open source 3D drivers...

[MartinG]

They could leave those parts out to be rewritten by the community, just like Sun have done with parts of OpenJDK.

Re:This is why we need open source 3D drivers...

[dave420]

You *do* realise those are the bits of the drivers that interface with the hardware? The same bits that cost millions of dollars to produce, due to the sheer amount of raw performance needed to be squeezed out of them. I doubt the open-source community, regardless how talented (and I know there's some insane talent out there) could replicate those in a timely fashion. Remember - they're playing catch-up with AMD. AMD will keep bringing out new cards, and these guys will have to keep re-engineering these bits of missing code. It's not going to result in open-source drivers comparable to their closed-source counterparts.

Re:This is why we need open source 3D drivers...

[Flodis]

Getting a little off-topic here, but...
I recently assembled a new rig which I intended to run Linux on. I had previously had some bad experiences with the drivers for an nVidia nForce4 motherboard (SATA-drivers corrupted files on disk and hardware CPU offloading for networking caused corrupt downloads and BSODs), but people were telling me how much better nVidia's Linux support was, so I went for a 7600GS anyway.
I'm not saying I regret going for a 7600GS, but I don't think I've ever had the misfortune to use such buggy graphics drivers before. It's so bad that I'm starting to suspect that people are mixing in opinions of OpenGL performance in their view of 'stable'. If nVidias Linux drivers are indeed better than ATI's, then ATI's drivers are a pile of stink indeed.

Re:This is why we need open source 3D drivers...

[BESTouff]

For now, it's NVidia for my gaming rigs. That'll change as soon as ATI actually open-sources their full 3D drivers.

... or as soon as Intel releases a decent gaming-grade gfx card !

Re:This is why we need open source 3D drivers...

[aka1nas]

The funny thing is that ATI has had consistently better drivers than Nvidia for the last year or so. Here's hoping that both companies get their act together and release higher quality drivers more frequently.

Re:This is why we need open source 3D drivers...

[MartinG]

Where is your evidence that the encumbered parts are the parts that interface with the hardware? Have you seen the source?

Why do you think those parts cost the most to produce? Given the specs, I would imagine the parts very close to the hardware cost the least. Why do you think otherwise?

Also, why assume the negative? Why not release the unencumbered parts and see what happens? What is there to lose? If you are right then nothing is lost. If you are wrong we end up with some good open drivers.

A number more reviews

[bad_fx]

As usual Anandtech is extremely thorough: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2988 &p=26

[H]ardocp's take: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTM 0MSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

techPowerUp (Warning, streaming video at the start >.>): http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_2900_XT/

The Inquirers expected vapid coverage: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39 580

I think I'll wait for more ATI drivers and some DX10 games before calling this one... Looks a little underwhelming at the moment though. I'm not regreting my 8800GTX purchase yet. ;)

Re:A number more reviews

[gormanly]

I'm not regreting my 8800GTX purchase yet.

Unsurprising, given that the reviews point to the HD 2900 XT being slower than the 8800 GTX (and the 8800 Ultra). It does surprise me, though, that ATI are 6 months behind and still couldn't beat NVIDIA for the performance crown - but it's nice to see a real fight again on price/performance, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the HD 2600 XT stacks up against the 8600 GTS (for those of us with a sanity budget restriction in place).

Re:A number more reviews

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Well, the 8800GTS is just under $300 while the new ATi card is $430, the budget leans towards nVidia and some extra RAM or a hard drive.

Folding@home performance

[Anonymous Coward]

This board has still more "crunching" performance than older generations, but the power usage is insane:
http://forum.folding-community.org/fpost185371.htm l#185371
http://folding.stanford.edu/FAQ-ATI.html

idle & load power ratings are scary

[Adult film producer]

Idle
----
Radeon 2900XT - 183
GeForce 8800 Ultra - 192
GeForce 8800 GTX SLI - 296
Radeon 2900XT Crossfire - 317


Full Load
---------
Radeon 2900XT - 312
GeForce 8800 Ultra - 315
GeForce 8800 GTX SLI - 443
Radeon 2900XT Crossfire - 490


This could get very expensive for people that leave their computers running 24/7.

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[davetv]

I suppose that would depend on your screensaver and power saving settings - unless you play 3d games 24/7. At Idle its comparable to an 8800

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[bad_fx]

Just a note, that is for the entire system, rather than just the graphics card. Still high compared to older generations. Just thought I'd point it out, since it may not be clear.

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[odoketa]

Given most people's expected load during non-gaming periods, it makes a lot more sense to have a second computer for your 24/7 machine.

I use a mac G4/dual 500 (i.e. an OLD old machine) as my 24/7 box - cost about $200 bucks, and does just fine quietly humming away in the corner drawing 75 watts.

If your idle numbers are right, you'd better have a good friend at the power company if you plan on leaving that machine running 24/7.

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[Abeydoun]

Here's a quote from TFA that I also found quite unnerving... "Also, we found that our 700W power supply wasn't up to the task of powering a Radeon HD 2900 XT CrossFire rig. In order to achieve stability, we had to switch to a new Thermaltake 1kW PSU with a pair of eight-pin connectors that AMD supplied."

Now don't get me wrong, I love to see these types of improvements in real time graphics rendering, but you know there's something wrong with the industry if they can ask PC Enthusiasts with a straight face to use power supplies powerful enough for Air Conditioning Units (albeit small ones) in their computers. That being said, I still commend the improvements made and I look forward to the lower end, passively cooled, versions becoming available for my next HTPC.

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[Scorpion265]

Simple solution... it's called S3 suspend...

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[DrLex]

I use a laptop (MacBook Pro C2D 15") as my '24/7' machine (actually more like 15/7). It uses 27W when doing simple stuff like browsing the web, 20W when idle with backlight off, and up to 60W when playing UT2k4. Of course the main reason why it's a laptop, is that it's slightly more portable than my gaming PC.

I expect most energy saving methods currently being used in laptops to be ported to desktops in the near future, because otherwise the power requirements will become unmanageable. If it continues like this, we'll soon have to hook up our PC's to three-phase sockets...

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[muffen]

Does it still draw power, or at the same high consumption-rate, if the screen is blanked?

I just bought a Radeon X1950Pro since my previous card wasn't handling Lord of the Rings Online very well, and I never considered that it might increase my power consumption when im not using the system.

(Genuinly interested in a response to this if someone really knows, would change my current behavior of just putting the system in powersave to actually turning it off).

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[ceeam]

Holy shit. I measured my whole 2GHz AMD64 desktop computer (sans monitor) power consumption a while and got only 74 watts at outlet in idle.

Really - I can't believe those numbers. Is there an error? How could they _waste_ 200 watts _at idle_?

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[afidel]

If you want a passively cooled card that can still play games look at the Geforce 8600GTS line. There are even models with HDCP chips to support Bluray/HDDVD playback.

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[bad_fx]

I wonder what brand of PSU that 700W one was though? All PSUs are definitely not created equal, as I've had no problem running a hell of a lot off a 220W Shuttle power supply, while I come across people having no end of trouble running similar things off no name brand 300 or 400W power supplies. o.O

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[Hoi Polloi]

Actually it makes a lot of sense, and is environmentally friendly, if you connect an air-out duct from your PC to your clothes dryer or your oven.

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[odoketa]

If (if!) the numbers are right, there are a number of places the electricity could go:

I presume you can't shut off the PCIe slot, which means the card is powered. Which probably means electricity running through a whole bunch of circuits, generating heat (i.e. using power). If the card is generating heat, the fan is on, and fans are never, ever winners in the efficiency game. If the fan isn't designed to step very well, that would add to the problem (i.e. if the settings are 'fast' and 'faster' rather than 'slow' 'fast' and 'faster').

Anybody else have an idea where all that tasty electricity goes?

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[gmerideth]

I ignored all of the wiz-bang FPS ratings after viewing that power consumption chart. Every few weeks by friends kid invites his friends around for a small lan party (about 9 total). They run power cords from other rooms to drive their rigs (everyone brings desktop+lcd and use usb headsets) but now I'm imagining the speed the power meter wheel will spin when 9 computers, each with a 1kw PSU, connect in that house. Thats assuming his 60+ year old home will even survive that.

Sounds like they should sell a solar panel with each 1kw PSU.

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[Mdentari]

Ahh. Power supplies are another story aren't they. There are articles all over the net that can guide you. I usually look at amps on the 12V lines and power supply weight. (Heavier usually being better) These are the fundamental factors to start with. I deal with naval ship power on hundreds of PC systems without UPS. Every time I have a system acting up, losing data, rebooting randomly I check the power supply. I actually take it out of the system, open it up and look at it. 9/10 times I see bulging caps or leaking caps or on occasion exploded capacitors. I noticed that the systems with more expensive power supplies lasted about three times longer. A hard lesson learned but now I know how important they can be for reliable computer operation.

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[edxwelch]

Funny, what I find unnerving is the maths:
"our 700W power supply wasn't up to the task of powering a Radeon HD 2900 XT CrossFire rig." ..."Full Load: Radeon 2900XT Crossfire - 490W"
am I missing something?

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[Abeydoun]

I'm guessing it has more to do with consistency of current rather than actual power. The Full load rating is an average, but it still doesn't make sense to need >200 extra Watts for peaking. It may be like bad_fx implied and they were using a crappy over-rated 700W PSU (though for a benchmarking site, I would hope that's not the case).

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[Fweeky]

XFX make a nice range of passively cooled 7950GT's too, though the heatsink design means they use two slots in the "wrong" direction.

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[tknd]

Power supply manufacturers typically pick a number close to the maximum possible consumption the unit can provide utilizing the maximum across all the different voltages it provides. So when you look at the sticker on the PSU, it will show you the maximum amps per each voltage. You take all of these numbers, multiply the voltage by the amps to get the watts (watts = volts * amps). Then add all of those numbers together to get the total maximum power the PSU can provide. That number should be fairly close to what the manufacturer advertises their PSU as.

The problem with the components in the computer is that they utilize different voltages. So what eventually happens is components require more current on a certain voltage than the PSU can offer at that voltage, however, the other voltages aren't maxed out. That's why people typically have problems with PSUs because they didn't read the sticker and compare the maximum current per each voltage compared to their actual needs. That's also why if you're smart, you can actually get by on a PSU rated at a lower total maximum wattage than a higher rated one (that may just load up on the lower voltages but leave the +12V line crappy to inflate the total maximum power number).

The final bit of information is that many reviewers are reviewing systems by total system power draw at the plug. The biggest factor that is altering this number is the PSU's efficiency rating. There are some really cheap PSUs that advertise high numbers but come with really bad efficiencies (in the 60% to 50% efficiency range). The efficiency of the PSU typically isn't given by many manufacturers. So what all this means is while the total system power consumption is 430watts at the plug, the components may only be eating 300 watts and the PSU is only 70% efficient. If you were to buy a PSU that was 80% efficient while providing 300watts, then your total system power at the plug would be about 376watts. But since many manufacturers don't provide the efficiency rating, you have to rely on data from the internet and more knowledgeable reviewers.

Re:idle & load power ratings are scary

[failedlogic]

Its not necessarily a bad idea to have a 24/7 machine as long as you don't buy a brand new machine. IMO, your Return on Investment on power savings would likely take much longer to recoup then the system will last.

For a $300+ card, I think one solution might be to have a low-power state vdieo chipset on-board which needs no cooling and draws 90% less power.

Expensive? They are a deal compared to days gone

[Shivetya]

When the voodoo1 and voodoo2 came out no one flinched at 300 cards, let alone 2 of them. Yet you still needed a separate 2d card before you could even use the voodoo cards.

You don't need these cards to draw pictures on your screen, you need them to animate the pictures on your screen. Sure you could play all games "Myst" style, but that isn't what people are after.

Plus, no one is forcing you to buy the latest and greatest. Quite a few games benefit from these cards, but many can be very playable by knocking down the resolution.

My only issue has been a lot of the high end cards eat two slots. I am not concerned about the heat or power as its already a given when making a high end game system.

Pussy's...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tssss.....

http://workstation.3dlabs.com/products/product.asp ?prod=293

Worth the wait?

[TENxOXR]

I've always used ATI cards and given that I've only just (embarrassingly) moved over to PCIe from AGP with my last upgrade, I was holding off to see what the R600 would offer over the G80. I must say that having read the reviews posted above I'm now more inclined to go for the GeForce 8800 GTX than the 2900 XT.

I know that ATI drivers are a tad lacking in some areas and that working under Vista presents its own challenges, but for the first time I think I'll be giving my money over to the folks at nVidia. There's just nothing about the 2900 XT that screams "buy me!!" louder than the 8800 GTX from what I can see.

10x...

Re:Worth the wait?

[Psiven]

The 2900XT offers great value though. It sucks power like 12 pound new born, sure, but in modern game engines it clocks just a hair under the 8800GTX. The difference is literally just a few frames. Not bad for a part thats up to $200 cheaper.

At least wait for a june refresh if you're going to buy nvidia.

Re:Worth the wait?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are comparing 2 different classes of cards (you may have noticed a price difference of $200).
The 2900 XT featured in this review is meant to compete with the 8800 GTS not the 8800 GTX.
The 2900 XTX (releasing later this year) is meant to compete with the GeForce 8800 GTX.

Re:Worth the wait?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, looking at the [H]ardOCP review... You must have pretty thick hair.

Re:Worth the wait?

[afidel]

Over the life of the card the extra power consumed will probably cost you more than the $200 savings and will further pollute the planet. My rig is an Athlon x2 4200+ LV with 2GB ram and SLI'd Geforce 7600GT's. It can play any game out there today and consumes less power total than any card in these reviews (about 150W peak). Oh yeah, it's mostly passively cooled with 2 large slow case fans, the PSU fan, and the CPU fan. It is silent enough to use as a HTPC box.

Re:Worth the wait?

[Anonymous Coward]

No it doesn't. This card performs really lower compared with 8800GTX. The price puts it fighting with 8800GTS 640MB and even then it looses.

Go read some real reviews ( the one in the news seemed like it was made by a fanboy) like the ones done by Anandtech or Guru3d.

And i do own a ATI card and i like the brand, and my mom ain't the owner of nvidia.

and YES, i regret both :D

AMD's big future problem

[Morgaine]

At the present time, the problems that AMD inherited when it bought ATI don't really matter greatly (except as a perception), because only enthusiasts buy graphics cards that cost as much as a basic PC. It's not the volume market.

However, unless AMD sorts all this out over the next couple of years, they are in for a huge amount of very costly trouble, and it may be terminal to their future in the desktop market. The problems ahead lie in the area of CPU-GPU integration.

We are told that AMD purchased ATI because they needed graphics expertise for a projected future in which scalar and vector processing is merged in an extremely parallel multi-core processor architecture. It's easy to see the reasoning here, as tight integration would decrease communication latencies and power consumption simultaneously. The benefits of tight integration are likely to be collosal, and AMD knows this from their success with hypertransport.

Unfortunately, such tight integration also means that ATI's remarkable incompetence at producing even half-decent drivers will bring AMD down badly, unless something is done about it. And short of firing the whole ex-ATI driver team, it's hard to see how to resolve this issue. You can't resolve it by trying to educate bad software engineers, that's for sure.

AMD have quite a problem on their hands.

Re:AMD's big future problem

[tuxicle]

We are told that AMD purchased ATI because they needed graphics expertise I thought it was to gain ATI's experience with chipset design, which AMD has been famously deficient in (AMD760, anyone?)

Re:AMD's big future problem

[fitten]

However, unless AMD sorts all this out over the next couple of years,

If the financial reports are accurate, AMD doesn't have a couple of years to sort it out. Their timeframe for sorting it out is significantly shorter.

Re:AMD's big future problem

[Gordo_1]

You had me for a moment there, but then you went and used the old "ATI makes bad drivers" shtick again. I understand that their Linux support has been more or less non-existent, but believe it or not, ATI drivers have been quite solid on the Windows side of the house for a while now.

We all know ATI had really poor driver development in the 90s. However, for at least the past five years or so -- since the introduction of the Radeon 9x00 DirectX9 (R300) generation hardware, their drivers have been at least as good as nVidia's, and in many ways better. They continue to get a bad rap here mostly because of their lack of Linux support and the difficult to defeat consensus that was built up over many years of bad drivers.

Now, onto R600. They really blew this generation. *But* it's not the driver team's fault per se. ATI simply took some gambles in the design phase and those gambles didn't pan out. It probably doesn't help that they had the XBox 360 and the AMD acquisition as distractions during development. On the plus side, it turns out that the 2900XT has enormous headroom -- it's going to overclock like crazy... but guess what? Thermally and power-wise, it's a disaster. Though the silicon may well clock 50-100% higher and blow away nVidia's 8800GTX, it turns out that it eats 600W PSUs for breakfast -- that's the real reason AMD couldn't release a high-end part: Few except for hardcore overclockers have 700W power supplies ready to feed this thing. That, and no one in their right mind wants a computer that uses 400+ watts idling on Microsoft Word. So AMD had to settle for the mid-market, with mediocre performance that's within an acceptable (albeit still very high) power envelope.

At far as driver quality goes, sure they've theoretically had a long time to get things right this time around, but there are bound to be issues with any newly designed generation of video hardware as complex as this. nVidia had many problems with the 8800 series when it first came out 6 months ago, but consensus is that it's settled down nicely with the recent Forceware 1.58 release. Anyway, I just wanted to point out that I don't believe it's the AMD driver team that really deserves to take the hit this time around. If AMD can deliver on the long-term promise of integrated CPU+GPUs, I think this R600 fiasco will go down as a temporary deviation in the grand scheme of things.

Re:AMD's big future problem

[Chandon Seldon]

Though the silicon may well clock 50-100% higher and blow away nVidia's 8800GTX, it turns out that it eats 600W PSUs for breakfast -- that's the real reason AMD couldn't release a high-end part: Few except for hardcore overclockers have 700W power supplies ready to feed this thing. That, and no one in their right mind wants a computer that uses 400+ watts idling on Microsoft Word. So AMD had to settle for the mid-market, with mediocre performance that's within an acceptable (albeit still very high) power envelope.

If they really release the 2950 XTX built on a 65nm process, that could solve the heat problems. The 2900 XT is good enough to prevent people from counting DAAMIT out of the high end graphics market entirely. Oh, and the 2600 and 2400 parts look like they could be really nice for power/performance - and those are what matter to most of the market anyway.

Re:AMD's big future problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand that their Linux support has been more or less non-existent, but believe it or not, ATI drivers have been quite solid on the Windows side of the house for a while now.

You're wrong, they have major problems even on Windows. They do ONE thing very well indeed now, and that's DirectX on Windows. But just try OpenGL on Windows, and you're up shit creek if your game or application does anything even moderately demanding.

ATI is a one-horse player, and they do that very well. But beyond that single DirectX niche, even on Windows, they're really dreadful. And of course outside of Windows, not even worth considering.

Re:AMD's big future problem

[Gordo_1]

Well, it may seem like a niche to you, but DirectX on Windows covers 90+% of the people who buy high end video cards in the first place. Incidentally, I have no problem running any of the iD software OpenGL releases (Doom3/Quake3,4) on my trusty old Radeon 9500Pro in Windows.

Re:AMD's big future problem

[Gordo_1]

Yup, I'm with you there. 65nm will be their saving grace, if they can get something out to market before the end of the year. Nvidia's getting way too comfortable with their monopoly in the high end to allow this to continue for very long.

I've had a Radeon 9500Pro since 2002, and been very happy with the quality of the hardware and drivers, but I've waited for six months for an ATI high end part to become the centerpiece of my next gaming rig. In the end, R600 clearly has enormous potential, but the 2900XT leaves a lot to be desired. In the interests of ending the agonizing wait once and for all, I splurged on an 8800GTX yesterday. I'm sure I'll be back in the AMD camp before too long... maybe a generation or two down the road.

Re:Strangely it's Nivida with sucky drivers right

[PopeRatzo]

Whomever gets good DX10 drivers out first, got a sale from me.

I must have missed an announcement. Are there DX10 games now? I've had my head in Supreme Commander (and of course, Eve) so I don't know.

Re:Strangely it's Nivida with sucky drivers right

[Psiven]

Well there's finally a "Call of Juarez" demo that a couple of reviews have been throwing around. It's pretty unoptimized code, apparently. These cards do ok on it considering.

http://www.hwupgrade.it/articoli/skvideo/1725/ati- radeon-hd-2900-xt-e-il-momento-di-r600_19.html

Here's linkage to video footage:
http://194.71.11.70/pub/games/PC/guru3d/generic/r6 /COJ_DX10_benchmark.wmv
http://194.71.11.70/pub/games/PC/guru3d/generic/r6 /Fireplace.wmv
http://194.71.11.70/pub/games/PC/guru3d/generic/r6 /Mountains_and_Rocks.wmv

Don't need DX10 games to use DX10

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless MS start demanding signed applications.

Re:Stupid question from a non english speaker

[Anonymous Coward]

None of the above?

I use eighty-eight-hundred GTX personally. Mainly because it rolls off the tounge easily.

Re:Stupid question from a non english speaker

[l_bratch]

I use number 4 - eight-eight-hundred-GTX

Re:Stupid question from a non english speaker

[JackieBrown]

That was number 4

Re:Expensive? They are a deal compared to days gon

[maxume]

My only issue has been a lot of the high end cards eat two slots. I am not concerned about the heat or power as its already a given when making a high end game system.

I know what you mean, I had to pull my pci based gum ball machine last time I upgraded my video card.

MOD DOWN! SPOILER TROLL!

[itchy92]

I opt out of mod points, but someone mod this douchebag down. The "quote" contains a spoiler for something.

Re:MOD DOWN! SPOILER TROLL!

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Man, that has motivated me to care about Lost. Locke maybe dying bummed me out.

Re:Strangely it's Nivida with sucky drivers right

[Cap'nPedro]

As a Vista user the GF8800 is right now out of the question, less the driver situation have changed recently. It has. Just grab the beta drivers.

ATI and Linux

[cyberkahn]

I completely agree. I bought an ATI card a few years ago, but it will definitely be my last. Their Linux support sucks and so I will vote with my dollars. Bye ATI, hello NVIDIA.

Not Direct Competitor to 8800gtx

[gyranthir]

AMD has not released and probably will not release for some time a direct competitor to the 8800gtx or the 8800ultra.
The 2900XT is a competitor to the 2 8800GTS models.
They are avoiding the top end market because more often then not the risk of that market does not meet the reward.
They are playing little ball to compare to base ball, trying to manufacture base hits and runs not home runs.
Offering 3 Cards starting at less than $100 and going to $400ish is a good strategy for the main stream market.
The HDMI dongle innovation (carries video and audio on the video card because all of the new cards have an audio processor on them) is a boon for them as well, helping carry the image of media center capable video cards, for a newer computer user age.
These will help push down prices on all of the cards within that price range. And possibly help push innovation in the marketplace.

Re:Not Direct Competitor to 8800gtx

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, and im sure it has nothing to do with the idle and load temps being astronomical... ;-) seriously, good luck trying to get these things to run any faster than stock speed (or enough to make a difference anyways) without some CRAZY cooling going on... im not disagreeing with you, but im sure that heat is another factor for them at this time... i mean, these things are generating so much heat it is redonkulous. which is at least 3x crazier than the regular ridiculous.

Re:Not Direct Competitor to 8800gtx

[Kymri]

In addition, their lack of a really impressive, robust, high-end part is probably due to the same thing that kept nVidia out of the game for a while a few years back:
They spent a fair amount of focus on developing a GPU for the Xbox 360 - and that R&D did not bring direct translation to their GPU offerings here.

It remains to be seen if it'll make that much difference in the long run, but at the moment, it looks like ATi hasn't got a whole lot to offer - of course, until we see some DX10 games and comparisons, who knows? It's possible that the X2000-series cards will destroy the NV80 parts in that realm. Until there are DX10 games (and DX10 games that consumers care about) that's sort of a moot point, however.

Re:Not Direct Competitor to 8800gtx

[OptionalMayhem]

It seems like this was supposed to be their answer to the GTX, only they couldn't get the clocks high enough. So, they lowered the price to position it against the GTS's and now wait for the process shrink.

Re:Not Direct Competitor to 8800gtx

[gyranthir]

I really doubt it, Look at there product line. All of it is consumer looking not enthusiast looking. There top end card cuts out at $400 not $850+ like nvidia. They are pushing the media center, home user, dabbling user market. Not the ultra hardcore market (which is always a risk and is always very fast moving, where one thing is the best today may not be tomorrow), the risk versus reward of the ultra hard core market isn't worth the risk to a company that just came off a 600 million dollar loss.

Re:Not Direct Competitor to 8800gtx

[gyranthir]

I think you're looking at this the wrong way. the 8800gtx series is about 2% of the market for video cards. The bleeding edge, pretty not worth the reward other than for bragging rights. Especially for a company working getting back on it's feet.

Re:Not Direct Competitor to 8800gtx

[aelfwyne]

A $400 video card is not "dabbling".... it is realizing that paying $600 for a few FPS more at resolutions most monitors only dream of in their worst nightmares is insane. To say that ATI's new cards don't compete is to ignore the fact that the majority of the market doesn't buy $600 video cards. Of course, now people will read that "nVidia cards are faster", then go out and overpay for a 7600GS when for the same money they could've had a faster ATI card.

Re:Not Direct Competitor to 8800gtx

[gyranthir]

By Dabbling I mean dabbling enthusiast, not a power user or hardcore enthusiast... The person like me that doesn't have $2500 to throw at a new computer. I may however splurge on a $400 video card, when I build my new system. But I do not have $600-$1100 to spend on some water cooled monstrosity of a video card. That is why I agree with ATi's move in the market, it's a great idea for them to push more into the normal user market not the hyper bleeding edge bragging rights only game where the risk is no where near worth the reward.

Re:Not Direct Competitor to 8800gtx

[Anonymous Coward]

"Dabbling enthusiast" sounds like an even narrower market than that for the 8800GTX. And when did the 8800GTX go from $600 to $600-$1100?! Your ATI fanboyism is showing and it's not a pretty side of you.

Expect NVIDIA to make an announcement soon...

[Joce640k]

NVIDIA's current card is six months old and they're obviously just waiting for AMD to show their hand. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they announce something with a lot more processors and 25% higher clock speed in the next couple of weeks.

Re:Expect NVIDIA to make an announcement soon...

[Babbster]

They could, but the evidence so far indicates that they don't need to. They've already got the 8800GTS selling for a lower price than the 2900XT and beating the latter in testing. Nvidia can take whatever time they need.

graphix CEO s*x

[Anonymous Coward]

You pathetic people. Graphicks cards are your gods. You know what in a few years? Graphix cards directly to your brain...but not to deliver pixels...to deliver sopophoric signals to make you love on s*x robots while AMD CEO slips into your home to impregnate your wife.

Re:graphix CEO s*x

[Anonymous Coward]

I would mod this, but unfortunately the dropdown doesn't have a "WTF" option.

Re:Stupid question from a non english speaker

[Anonymous Coward]

Aight thousands Aight hundered Double Ought Gutex

nVidia has higher quality

[coren2000]

I have seen 4 ATI cards bomb out since 2000, all of them needed replacing. I have NEVER seen an nVidia card bomb out.
From my limited point of view, nVidia sells higher quality cards.

Two weeks ago, I had to replace my ATI 1600 pro with a nVidia 7600 GS. They are roughly equivalent cards.
In windowsxp running Oblivion, I notice a drop in performance with my new 7600gs. In Ubuntu Linux I notice a glxgears score 10 times higher! Now I understand that this improvement is because of the better drivers, but its all the same to me from an end-user point of view.

So, even though gaming was better with the ATI, I am happy with my nVidia because I expect it to have a lifespan much greater than the ATI, and my Linux experience (I use Compiz w/ Ubuntu) is dramatically improved.

Re:nVidia has higher quality

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol, both have there problems with their cards.
nVidia bomb out just as much as Ati.
Maybe cooling and possible package handling could be to blame for most card problems.
that and overclocking.

Oh and higher quality is up to the company who puts it together.
they all perform differently, powercolor, gigabyte, foxconn. can all be the same chipset and ram.
and they'll get different 3dmarks/performance.

Re:nVidia has higher quality

[coren2000]

Point taken Im strictly going from my personal experience here though... and my personal experience is that I have never seen an nVidia based card bomb, while I have seen lots of ATI based cards bomb.

Helllloo Child Support!

[bobbuck]

^D

32 bit can= 10+10+10+2

[Minute Work]

In the plasma/lcd world, 32 bit color output can indeed contain a broader color pallet than the 16.7 million colors that a 24 bit color pallet is capable of displaying.

In many displays you will see 10-bit 1.07-billion color display capability mentioned as a feature.

Re:32 bit can= 10+10+10+2

[Prune]

That's still not enough. The human eye has at least 60 dB dynamic range within any given pupil dilation state. This far only expensive HDR displays (e.g. Brightside's which are about $50,000) to manage that.
Then you need an extended color gamut to cover the full range of color that the eye can see. There are some projector systems that do that, using more than the usual 3 color filters.
Then you need autostereoscopic displays to get proper 3D (I won't even mention the lack of accomodation depth perception, the eye's adjustment of focal depth, which does play a part; only holographic displays manage that).
There are some examples of each of these. But you'd need to have all three in one display to get a true illusion of a window into another world. Not gonna happen anytime soon!

Agreed, 150w+ is too much for a graphics card

[default luser]

I'm waiting for the 65nm refresh, myself.

I was pretty happy when I picked up my 90nm $300 7900 GT last year - same power consumption as my old 6600 GT, but three times the performance! If I HAD to buy today, I'd get the 8800 GTS, but because Nvidia didn't design it with different 2D and 3D clocks, the 2D idle consumption is higher than it should be. The x2900 XT has a "low" idle power consumption in respect to the 8800-series because it supports a lower 2D clock.

Hopefully, this will be corrected in the 65nm refresh. Even if it isn't, the overall power consumption should drop significantly.

Re:Stupid question from a non english speaker

[JackieBrown]

I guess reading instead of glancing at a post before posting would help.

Not sure why you were modded as troll, I was clearly wrong.

Is there any hope?

[VGAfreak]

I mean, I've been checking out the reviews out there... For example, http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39580/ http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39603/ http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39605/ http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39635/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1335&Itemid=1/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1325&Itemid=1/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1336&Itemid=1/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1337&Itemid=1/ http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/r60 0-architecture.html/ http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2988 / http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_2900_XT/ I see that everyone came to pretty much same results. I'm not sure this "HD2900XT" thing will be repairable. I think that perhaps AMD's announcement that they're targeting best-buy in high-end is more valid. Although that one might have been said in pure desparation....