ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT: Calling a Spade a Spade
by Derek Wilson on May 14, 2007 12:04 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Power Supply Requirements
With new product launches, we expect to see increased power requirements for increased performance. With the 8800 series, we saw hardware that offered excellent performance without breaking the bank on power, while the highest end part available required two PCIe power connectors. We can forgive the power gluttony of the 8800 GTX as the 8800 GTS offers terrific performance with a more efficient use of power.
R600 goes in another direction. We have a new part that doesn't compete with the high end hardware but has even more stringent power requirements. While NVIDIA's $400 hardware offered good power efficiency, AMD's Radeon HD 2900 XT eats power for breakfast. In fact, with the R600, we see the first use of PCIe 2.0 power connectors. These expand on the current 6-pin power connector to offer up to 150W over an 8-pin configuration.
The 8-pin PCIe 2.0 power connector enables graphics cards to pull up to 300W of power just for themselves. With 75W delivered through the slot, 75W through a 6-pin PCIe power cable, and 150W sliding down the PCIe 2.0 wire, the R600 has plenty of juice on tap. While it doesn't pull a full 300W in any test we ran, overdrive won't be able to function without the combination of a 6-pin and 8-pin connector.
All is not lost, however, as two 6-pin connectors will still be able to power the R600 for normal operation. The 8-pin receptacle will accept a 6-pin cable leaving two holes empty. This doesn't degrade performance when running R600 at normal clock speeds, but overclocking will be affected without the added power.
The bottom line as we'll shortly show is that AMD has built hardware with the performance of an 8800 GTS in a power envelope beyond the 8800 Ultra. We will take a closer look in our performance benchmarks when we actually test power draw under idle and load using 3dmark06.
The Test
| CPU: | Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93GHz/4MB) |
| Motherboard: | EVGA nForce 680i SLI ASUS P5W-DH |
| Chipset: | NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Intel 975X |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 8.2.0.1014 NVIDIA nForce 9.53 |
| Hard Disk: | Seagate 7200.7 160GB SATA |
| Memory: | Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 (1GB x 2) |
| Video Card: | Various |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 8.37 NVIDIA ForceWare 158.22 |
| Desktop Resolution: | 2560 x 1600 - 32-bit @ 60Hz |
| OS: | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
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yyrkoon - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
See, the problem here is: guys like you are so bent on saving that little bit of money, by buying a lesser brand name, that you do not even take the time to research your hardware. USe newegg , and read the user reviews, and if that is not enough for you, go to the countless other resources all over the internet.yyrkoon - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
Blame the crappy OEM you bought the card from, not nVIdia. Get an EVGA card, and embrace a completely different aspect on video card life.MSI may make some decent motherboards, but their other components have serious issues.
LoneWolf15 - Thursday, May 17, 2007 - link
Um, since 95% of nvidia-GPU cards on the market are the reference design, I'd say your argument here is shaky at best. EVGA and MSI both use the reference design, and it's even possible that cards with the same GPU came off the same production line at the same plant.DerekWilson - Thursday, May 17, 2007 - link
it is true that the majority of parts are based on reference designs, but that doesn't mean they all come from the same place. I'm sure some of them do, but to say that all of these guys just buy completed boards and put their name on them all the time is selling them a little short.at the same time, the whole argument of which manufacturer builds the better board on a board component level isn't something we can really answer.
what we would suggest is that its better to buy from OEMs who have good customer service and long extensive warranties. this way, even if things do go wrong, there is some recourse for customers who get bad boards or have bad experiences with drivers and software.
cmdrdredd - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
you're wrong. 99% of people buying these high end cards are gaming. Those gamers demand and deserve the best possible performance. If a card that uses MORE power and costs MORE (x2900xt vs 8800gts) and performs generally the same or slower what is the point? Fact is...ATI's high end is in fact slower than mid range offerings from Nvidia and consumes alot more power. Regardless of what you think, people are buying these based on performance benchmarks in 99% of all cases.AnnonymousCoward - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
No, you're wrong. Did you overlook the emphasis he put on "NOT ALWAYS"?You said 99% use for gaming--so there's 1%. Out of the gamers, many really want LCD scaling to work, so that games aren't stretched horribly on widescreen monitors. Some gamers would also like TVout to work.
So he was right: faster is NOT ALWAYS better.
erwos - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
It'd be nice to get the scoop on the video decode acceleration present on these boards, and how it stocks up to the (excellent) PureVideo HD found in the 8600 series.imaheadcase - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
I agree! They need to do a whole article on video acceleration on a range of cards and show the pluses and cons of each card in respective areas. A lot of people like myself like to watch videos and game on cards, but like the option open to use the advanced video features.Turnip - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
"We certainly hope we won't see a repeat of the R600 launch when Barcelona and Agena take on Core 2 Duo/Quad in a few months...."Why, that's exactly what I had been thinking :)
Phew! I made it through the whole thing though, I even read all of those awfully big words and everything! :)
Thanks guys, another top review :)
Kougar - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
First, great article! I will be going back to reread the very indepth analysis of the hardware and features, something that keeps me a avid Anandtech reader. :)Since it was mentioned that overclocking will be included in a future article, I would like to suggest that if possible watercooling be factored into it. So far one review site has already done a watercooled test with a low-end watercooling setup, and without mods acheived 930MHz on the Core, which indirectly means 930MHz shaders if I understand the hardware.
I'm sure I am not the only reader extremely interested to see if all R600 needs is a ~900-950MHz overclock to offer some solid GTX level performance... or if it would even help at all. Again thanks for the consideration, and the great article! Now off to find some Folding@Home numbers...