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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mostlyprudent - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
Frankly, neither the NVIDIA nor the AMD part at this price point is all that impressive an upgrade from the prior generations. We keep hearing that we will have to wait for DX10 titles to know the real performance of these cards, but I suspect that by the time DX10 titles are on the shelves we will have at least product line refreshes by both companies. Does anyone else feel like the graphics card industry is jerking our chains?johnsonx - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
It seems pretty obvious that AMD needs a Radeon HD2900Pro to fill in the gap between the 2900XT and 2600XT. Use R600 silicon, give it 256Mb RAM with a 256-bit memory bus. Lower the clocks 15% so that power consumption will be lower, and so that chips that don't bin at full XT speeds can be used. Price at $250-$300. It would own the upper-midrange segment over the 8600GTS, and eat into the 8800GTS 320's lunch as well.GlassHouse69 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
If I know this, and YOU know this.... wouldnt anandtech? I see money under the table or utter stupidity at work at anand. I mean, I know that the .01+ version does a lot better in benches as well as the higher res with aa/af on sometimes get BETTER framerates than lower res, no aa/af settings. This is a driver thing. If I know this, you know this, anand must. I would rather admit to being corrupt rather than that stupid.GlassHouse69 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
wrong section. dt is doing that today it seems to a few peoplexfiver - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
Hi, thank you for a really in depth review. While reading other 'earlier' reviews I remember a site using Catalyst 8.38 and reported performance improvements upto 14% from 8.37. Look forward to Anandtech's view on this.xfiver - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
My apologies it was VR zone and 8.36 to 8.37 (not 8.38)GlassHouse69 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
If I know this, and YOU know this.... wouldnt anandtech? I see money under the table or utter stupidity at work at anand. I mean, I know that the .01+ version does a lot better in benches as well as the higher res with aa/af on sometimes get BETTER framerates than lower res, no aa/af settings. This is a driver thing. If I know this, you know this, anand must. I would rather admit to being corrupt rather than that stupid.Gary Key - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
I have worked extensively with four 8.37 releases and now the 8.38 release for the upcoming P35 release article. The 8.37.4.2 alpha driver had the top performance in SM3.0 heavy apps but was not very stable with numerous games, especially under Vista. The released 8.37.4.3 driver on AMD's website is the most stable driver to date and has decent performance but nothing near the alpha 8.37 or beta 8.38. The 8.38s offer great benchmark performance in the 3DMarks, several games, and a couple of DX10 benchmarks from AMD.
However, the 8.38s more or less broke CrossFire, OpenGL, and video acceleration in Vista depending upon the app and IQ is not always perfect. While there is a great deal of promise in their performance and we see the potential, they are still Beta drivers that have a long ways to go in certain areas before their final release date of 5/23 (internal target).
That said, would you rather see impressive results in 3DMarks or have someone tell you the truth about the development progress or lack of it with the drivers. As much as I would like to see this card's performance improve immediately, it is what it is at this time with the released drivers. AMD/ATI will improve the performance of the card with better drivers but until they are released our only choice is to go with what they sent. We said the same thing about NVIDIA's early driver issues with the G80 so there are not any fanboys or people taking money under the table around here. You can put all the lipstick on a pig you want, but in the end, you still have a pig. ;-)
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
There's nothing sinister going on, ATI gave us 8.37 to test with and told us to use it. We got 8.38 today and are currently testing it for a follow-up.Take care,
Anand
GlassHouse69 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
wow dood. you replied!Yes, I have been wondering about the ethics of your group here for about a year now. I felt this sorta slick leaning towards and masking thing goign on. Nice to see there is not.
Thanks for the 1000's of articles and tests!
-Mr. Glass