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ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT @ t-break
DailyTech's roundup of reviews from around the web for Monday

ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT
@ PCPerspective
@ HWUpgrade.IT
@ Tech Report
@ t-break
@ Hot Hardware
@ TweakTown
@ Phoronix
@ Driver Heaven
@ Bjorn3D
@ Altgamer.org
@ Elite Bastards
@ VR Zone
@ IT-review
@ Legit Reviews
@ OCC
@ Hardware Secrets
@ Guru3D
@ techPowerUp
@ Chile Hardware

Motherboards
MSI K9AGM2-FIH Motherboard @ PCSTATS.com
XFX 680i LT SLI Motherboard @ TweakTown

Memory
OCZ DDR2 PC2-9200 Reaper HPC Edition @ X-bit Labs
Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC8500 @ Auphanonline.com

Video
Asus EN8800GTX 768Mb Videocard @ Rbmods

Displays/TVs
BenQ FP241VW 24" LCD @ 3dGameMan

Cooling
Thermaltake Mini Typhoon Value Pack @ ThinkComputers.org
Nexus NHP-2200 Silent North Bridge Cooler @ XtremeComputing

Power Supplies
Tt Toughpower 1200w PSU @ OC Cafe

Storage
ASUS DRW-1814BLT SATA 18x DVD±RW/RAM @ CDRLabs.com

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ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT a "Flop"
By Ard on 5/14/2007 2:20:21 AM , Rating: 2
RE: ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT a "Flop"
By yxalitis on 5/14/2007 3:55:40 AM , Rating: 4
Really: Try reading this:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_2900_XT/...
And this:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/449/10
And here:
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1100/14/page_14_...
And Here:
http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?cat=grfx...

So, one article in 5 shows a poor performace...Check Mate?
According to the majority, the 2900 XT nearly matches the GTX.


RE: ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT a "Flop"
By P4blo on 5/14/07, Rating: 0
RE: ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT a "Flop"
By ioKain on 5/14/2007 8:47:01 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
You can stack it up against the GTS if you like but that's not what AMD had intended originally.


Wrong.


RE: ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT a "Flop"
By P4blo on 5/28/2007 9:05:13 AM , Rating: 2
If the R600 performance had been anything like as good as they'd hoped (they certainly went for the performance crown with the hardware spec) then they would have sold an XTX to blow away the GTX. They couldn't compete so ditched the XTX model and *renamed it* the XT.

You cant tell me that from day one they said 'Ahh screw it, we cant be bothered with the performance crown'. Piffle.

Stop being such a fanboy.


By Sh0ckwave on 5/14/2007 8:02:29 AM , Rating: 2
I want to read Anandtech's review, whats taking them so long...


By redbone75 on 5/14/2007 8:04:12 AM , Rating: 1
Let me ask you something: Do you play games or benchmarks?


RE: ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT a "Flop"
By bfellow on 5/14/2007 9:54:25 AM , Rating: 2
According to the majority the 8800 GTX beats the HD2900XT. Did you not read the articles?


RE: ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT a "Flop"
By elegault on 5/14/2007 10:29:42 AM , Rating: 2
The 2900XT is to be positioned against the 8800GTS, the price matches none-the-less. The 2900XTX is to be positioned against the 8800GTX/Ultra.


RE: ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT a "Flop"
By Ard on 5/14/2007 4:23:21 PM , Rating: 2
Ahh...the first sign: denial.


By redbone75 on 5/14/2007 7:46:06 AM , Rating: 2
I prefer checking out HardOCP.com's videocard reviews as they are, IMO, the most dependable. The only knock I have against this particular review is that the cards used are not retail cards. Still, it's a good read even though it doesn't paint a rosy picture for the 2900.


RE: ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT a "Flop"
By TechLuster on 5/14/2007 7:36:21 PM , Rating: 3
I already posted this in DT's 2900 launch article, but it seems relevant here also:

----------------------------------------

A few weeks ago, [H]ard|OCP gave a glowing review of the 8600 GTS, in which they concluded that it soundly beats the X1950 PRO (for now, we'll ignore the fact that they were comparing the $150 1950 to $220 OC'ed versions of the GTS, which cost roughly 50% more). Of course, every other review on the web concluded that in the best cases, the 8600 GTS keeps up with Ati's 1950 Pro, and in the worst case is completely embarassed by the 1950; in several cases, even a stock 7900 GS can cream the 8600 GTS.

So when they stated in the intro of their HD 2900 XT review that the 8600 offers "the best performance in [its] class," I was reminded of their deceptively positive review of the 8600, and thus was not a bit surprised when they showed the 8800 GTS outperforming the 2900 XT in virtually ALL cases. Most reviews I've seen so far have had the 2900 keeping up with, and in some cases soundly beating, the 8800 GTS in at least a few significant games (see, e.g., Rainbow Six: Vegas in AnandTech's review).

I won't go as far as to say that [H]ard|OCP massaged or fabricated data, but I do think they deliberately chose their tests in both their 8600 and 2900 reviews to make the ATI parts look bad.

In any case, I don't think any of us can ever trust that website again.

Here are the relevant links:

[H] 8600 review:
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTM...

[H] 2900 review:
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTM...

AnandTech Rainbow Six: Vegas benchmark of the 2900 & 8800:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2988...


RE: ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT a "Flop"
By schmunk on 5/17/2007 8:09:10 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah! They turned on all the special effects and features just to show that the 8800GTS was faster with all the extras, and then they increased the resolution to show the advantage it had on larger screens. Plus, rather than sticking to benchmarks, they actualy played the games, what deception! Who buys a video card to turn all the features on and play games? Everyone knows we only use them to run 3dmark at 1280 by 1040 on 17" monitors.
Seriously, I have owned both companies cards, and I will buy whatever gives me a better value, and I like to turn every feature on and game widesceen, my 8800GTS 640 superclock was only $370, and I can run two on my 650W PSU. If you can't read HardOCP review and understand it, you are doomed to waste your money, but it's your choice.


RE: ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT a "Flop"
By schmunk on 5/18/2007 2:44:42 AM , Rating: 2
I just want to say how wrong this claim is by TechLuster:

"I won't go as far as to say that [H]ard|OCP massaged or fabricated data, but I do think they deliberately chose their tests in both their 8600 and 2900 reviews to make the ATI parts look bad.
In any case, I don't think any of us can ever trust that website again."

HardOCP has been reviewing cards like this for four years now. Kyle Bennett HardOCP Editor-in-Chief himself said,

"I was telling Brent the other day, that even though we went to this "real world gaming" format over 4 years ago, that is it just now truly coming into its own and I think this evaluation is the crowning jewel when it comes to showing why the way we do it gives our readers better information than canned benchmarks and time demos.
Interestingly enough, it was ATI's image quality superiority that pushed me to make the changes back then."

That original review was of the 9700Pro, and I bought one based on the review, and loved it.
You can't say its no fair when your favorite brand gets a bad review!

I have been in contact with Kyle for years now, and he is a true advocate of the consumer, and fully supports your right to buy whatever brand offers you the best value. They have pointed out strengths and weaknesses in all hardware, no matter if it's Nvidia or ATI, Intel or AMD. Kyle had routinely refused to review engineering samples of hardware and systems to instead review off the shelf hardware for yours and my own benefit, showing us what we can expect. You couldn't have slandered a fairer site!

If you take time and really read through the review, it makes a lot of sense to move away from caned benchmarks and design specs, and instead to run games the way we run them, turning on features to give the best experience possible while maintaining a frame rate high enough for smooth and enjoyable game play.
Also, doesn't it make you wonder why at any resolution higher than the one in this review, that the card can no longer perform with any features turned on?
Think people-what about the power requirements, what about the filtering comparison, what about the blurred tent AA modes, what about the fact that the ring bus never added up to an advantage before, bandwidth doesn't matter if the GPU can't keep up with it. Everyone in this forum says extra memory doesn't do anything for the 8800s (which I disagree with, developers of DOOM3 pushed to add ultra mode for 512MB, they could always add higher frame buffer modes for the Nvidia card, and they also scale better at high resolutions), but no one considers extra bandwidth could be useless.
-Anyone that throws out a in depth review of this card on HardOCP without even asking a few questions isn't looking for the best card, they are only interesting in believing that ATI made a better card.
And no one in the high tech community benefits when someone slanders a quality web site and good people without looking into the facts first.


By Puddleglum1 on 5/14/2007 2:55:43 PM , Rating: 3
By clemedia on 5/14/2007 11:23:52 PM , Rating: 1
Terribly done review too. Whats with the colors on the graphs meaning different cards for different games? CONSISTENCY PLEASE! After about 3 games I just stopped looking at the review and went to a different site.


By ioKain on 5/15/2007 9:00:24 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
Terribly done review too. Whats with the colors on the graphs meaning different cards for different games? CONSISTENCY PLEASE! After about 3 games I just stopped looking at the review and went to a different site.


I hope for your sake that you're just joking.


mixed...
By Mithan on 5/14/2007 1:27:34 AM , Rating: 2
My feelings are mixed on this card.

It isn't a bad card, but it sure as hell isn't something that makes me go "WOW" either.

Anyways, hopefully a few more driver revisions get another 10-15% performance out of the card (likely). I am sure a few of the games are currently slightly broken as well and will see some huge performance increases.

Either way, I hope the card does good for AMD because they sure as hell need a success at the moment and as they say, strong competition for nVidia only keeps prices down.




RE: mixed...
By redbone75 on 5/14/2007 7:58:15 AM , Rating: 2
Totally agree with you there. ANY company, not just videocard manufacturers, are going to try to squeeze every last cent they can out of their products. Look at the 8800 Ultra: $850US? Are you kidding me?! And for only a mild overclock? Just goes to show that options breeds honesty. There is no option in the 8800 Ultra's price range, so nvidia feel they can charge the highest price they can and get away with it.

It's unfortunate that ATI seriously dropped the ball on this one, and they knew it. I'm sure it was just too late in the development of R600 to make any major changes to it, as the card has been tremendously delayed already. You can bet your bottom dollar, though, that they've already been hard at work on a refresh/replacement. For their sake they'd better be.


RE: mixed...
By SavagePotato on 5/14/2007 9:41:01 AM , Rating: 2
The Ultra is a joke, you can get cards from BFG or other manufacturers that cost less and are clocked higher than the Ultra and are just plain 8800's

Sadly unless ATI has another card ready to go right away were all royaly screwed. Say hello to the 1000$ video card courtesy of everyones old pal Nvidia.

I'm a long time pc gamer but it just might be time to say hello to consoles, Gladly would take that step before I pay Nvidia their extortion prices for cards with no drivers.

And yes I have a Nvidia card. 7900GTX actualy. Decent card but marred by Nvidia crap all the way through it's lifespan. From the lack of drivers the day I bought it that forced me to swap back to XP 32 bit, right up to the lack of drivers when Vista came out that still realy has barely improved.

Bend over and get your wallet ready.


Review by Tech Report
By subhajit on 5/14/2007 5:17:46 AM , Rating: 6
bad Linux support
By mforce on 5/14/2007 3:50:13 AM , Rating: 2
The top of the line , 2900 XT is of no interest to me , it just uses too much power , is too expensive. The 2400 XT however sounds interesting. But given ATI's record with poor Linux support however I probably won't be getting this.
AMD should at least try to do more for open source Linux driver support, it would be a market where they could beat nVidia.




RE: bad Linux support
By elmikethemike on 5/14/2007 4:48:43 AM , Rating: 1
1.) The XTX is the top of the line ATI card.

2.) It barely uses more power than a GTS/GTX. If you have a PSU that can handle a GTS, it'll handily power a XT.

3.) Same price as the GTS.

4.) Who games on linux? At most, .1%. It's a waste of time.


RE: bad Linux support
By xNIBx on 5/14/2007 7:13:00 AM , Rating: 2
2900xt uses 65 freaking watt more than 8800gts 640mB under load(according to vr-zone). How is that "barely uses more power"? 65watt = 100watt theoretical watt(as in how "psu companies calculate watt for their psu").

2900xt is a decent card. It has advantages and disadvantages. It is obvious that it lacks tmu firepower, it consumes a lot of power and has immature drivers(thus extremely bad performance with aa on some games). Also i dont like this whole "blurmania" that it introduces(which many reviewers think it is improved aa, rofl).

But if i had to choose between 8800gts and 2900xt, i would go for the 2900xt(assuming i could get it for around the same money as the 8800gts 640mB). Still, it is a risk. 8800gts seems to be more balanced card and a safer bet.

My suggestion is to wait untill crysis comes out. Then whatever card performs on crysis, get it :p.


I'm getting one!!
By Jedi2155 on 5/14/2007 12:50:15 AM , Rating: 4
After experiencing the slow driver support for the past six months after my first forray into using nvidia parts for myself (i've purchased and supported them for others), I was horribly disappointed by their lack of a driver support for my card (Geforce 7950 GX2) in both Vista and XP-32 bit, and sincerely wanted to move back to ATI since.

Now they've given me that option with the X2900 series! According to Tweaktown they're priced aggresively
quote:
it is actually priced aggressively at around the US$350 - US$399 mark in United States, which puts it price wise up against Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB.


Lets hope availability is good and won't drive the price up.




Drivers will be the determining factor.
By Goty on 5/14/2007 10:13:47 AM , Rating: 2
All of the reviews (except the extremely biased ones) mentioned how rough the drivers appear. I think that AMD should be able to make this the competitor it should have been with a minimal amount of effort in the driver area.




By bfellow on 5/14/2007 3:00:15 PM , Rating: 2
If the drivers are horrible, then why did Henri Richards mentioned ALL the 2000 series were ready except the Vista drivers several months ago? Did they fumble on tweaking the drivers the past few months?


DX10 race
By tkSteveFOX on 5/14/07, Rating: -1
RE: DX10 race
By redbone75 on 5/14/2007 11:24:21 AM , Rating: 3
Puff, puff, pass fool!


RE: DX10 race
By jazkat on 5/14/2007 12:05:19 PM , Rating: 2
yes i agree with you doint listen to the nvidia bum crabs
the r600 gpu is a verygood design the trouble is it was designed durring the merge that couldnt have been easy.
amd will always offer a good product for a good price every body grizzles about daamit but if they go nvidia and intel will put pricess up and that sucks i also thinks its sad how nvidia and intel are teaming up to try and break amd.
funny how people go on about r600 being 6 months late well its taken nvidia 8 months to get you a half decent vista driver, ok ati's driver isnt doing well on the performance front but atleast it works lol, when ati gets the drivers sorted i think it will trounce the gts and be snapping away at the gtx's tail,this merge is was slowed r600, i cant wait for the all amd r700 now that will be a fair comparison to nvidias offering, i cant wait for dx10 because thats where r600 will shine it was tottaly designed for dx10 they worked along side microsoft when creating this product give it a few weeks for them to sort drivers,
im always a bit behind but then again i dont care as i dont pay for my graphics cards as my friend is a game developer and when hes done with the cards i get them :),
if he offered me a nvidia card for free i wouldnt take it i reallly dont like the company they are smarmy and bigheaded and its really doing peoples heads in in the industry i hope oneday they go bankrupt, and as for intel they sucvk also.


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