ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT: Calling a Spade a Spade
by Derek Wilson on May 14, 2007 12:04 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The AMD HD 2000 Series Lineup
The announcement today includes a top-to-bottom lineup of DX10 class hardware including four mobile parts (with one additional DX9 mobile part sharing the HD 2000 series naming) and five desktop parts. While all of this hardware is being made public, we've only got one piece of hardware to bring to the table today: the R600 based Radeon HD 2900 XT.
Performance on all other R6xx parts won't be available until "late June", but we can still talk about what these parts will be when they finally make it to market. On the desktop, in addition to the HD 2900 XT, we will see the Radeon HD 2400 Pro and XT in the "value" segment, with the HD 2600 Pro and XT providing good mainstream-to-midrange gaming performance.
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT
ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT
ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro
There is currently no add-in retail hardware planned that tops the HD 2900 XT, but we are hearing rumors that faster parts may be available through OEMs only. This is unconfirmed at present, so take it with a grain of salt. Let's take a look at a break down of what we do know we'll be getting:
| AMD R6xx Hardware | ||||||||
| SPs | RBEs | Core Clock | TMUs | DDR Rate | Bus Width | Memory Size | Price | |
| HD 2900 XT | 320 | 16 | 740MHz | 16 | 825MHz | 512bit | 512MB | $399 |
| HD 2600 | 120 | 4 | 600 - 800MHz | 8 | 400 - 1100MHz | 128bit | 256MB | $99 - $199 |
| HD 2400 | 40 | 4 | 525 - 700MHz | 4 | 400 - 800MHz | 64bit | 128MB / 256MB | <$99 |
It's harder to pin down all the specs of the mobile parts, as all the clock speeds (and sometimes bus width) can change depending on the TDP envelope a notebook maker is working with. While we aren't certain, our best guess is that mobile parts named similarly to desktop parts will have the same internal configuration of SPs, texture units, and render back ends. The exception here is the Mobility Radeon HD 2300, which is a DX9 part based on R5xx hardware.
While 2400 and 2600 standard and XT versions will exist in the mobile space, there are currently no plans for a high end mobile part. This is very likely due to the high power draw and low performance per watt we see with AMD's 80nm R600. We don't expect to see a higher performance mobile part until AMD can get the power consumption of its higher end hardware down (likely with a process shrink).
Just for comparison, let's take a look at what NVIDIA is currently offering as well. Here's a table of all the G8x based parts on the market.
| NVIDIA G8x Hardware | ||||||||
| SPs | ROPs | Core Clock | Shader Clock | DDR Rate | Bus Width | Memory Size | Price | |
| 8800 Ultra | 128 | 24 | 612MHz | 1.5GHz | 2.16GHz | 384bit | 768MB | $830+ |
| 8800 GTX | 128 | 24 | 576MHz | 1.35GHz | 1.8GHz | 384bit | 768MB | $600 - $650 |
| 8800 GTS | 96 | 20 | 513MHz | 1.19GHz | 1.6GHz | 320bit | 640MB | $400 - $450 |
| 8800 GTS 320MB | 96 | 20 | 513MHz | 1.19GHz | 1.6GHz | 320bit | 320MB | $300 - $350 |
| 8600 GTS | 32 | 8 | 675MHz | 1.45GHz | 2GHz | 128bit | 256MB | $200 - $230 |
| 8600 GT | 32 | 8 | 540MHz | 1.19GHz | 1.4GHz | 128bit | 256MB | $150 - $160 |
| 8500 GT | 16 | 4 | 450MHz | 900MHz | 800MHz | 128bit | 256MB / 512MB | $89 - $129 |
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TA152H - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
Fanboy? What a dork.I've had success with ATI, not with NVIDIA, and I know ATI stuff a lot better so it's just easier for me to work with. It's not an irrational like or dislike. I bought one NVIDIA and it was a nightmare. Plus, I'm not as sure they'll be around for very long as I am ATI/AMD, although they had a good quarter, and AMD surely had a dreadful one.
Selling discrete video cards alone might get a lot more difficult with the integration of CPUs, and GPUs.
yyrkoon - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
You are a fanboy, face it. 'I tried a nVidia card once . . .' How long ago was that ? Who made the card ? Did you have it configured properly? Once?! Details like this are important, and seemily/conviently left out. Anyhow, anyone claiming that nVIdia cards are 'junk' has definate issues with assembling/configuring hardware. I say this because my current system uses a nVidia based card, and is 100% rock solid. 'Person between the chair and keyboard' rings a bell.Ask any Linux user why they refuse to use ATI cards in their system . . . You are also one of these people out there that claims ATI driver support is superior to nVIdias driver support I suppose ? If you have truely been using ATI products for 20 years, then you know ATI has one of the worst reputations on the planet for driver support(and while it may have improved, it is not as good as nVidias still).
Yeah, anyhow, ATI, and nVidia both can have problems with their hardware, it is not based 100% on their architecture, but the OEM releasing the products have a lot of effect here also. There are bad OEMs to buy from here on both sides of the fence, knowing who to stay away from, is half the work when building a PC, and probably had a lot more to do with your alleged 'bad nVIdia card', assuming you actually configured the card properly.
I also had a problem with an nVIdia card once, I bought a brand new GF3 card about 7 years ago, and a few of the older games I had, would not display properly with it. What did I do ? I waited about a month, for a new driver, and the problem was solved. I have also had issues with ATI cards, one of which drew too much power from the AGP slot, and would cause the given system to crash 1-2 times a day. This was a design issue/oversight on ATI's behalf(the card was made by Saphire, who also makes ATIs cards). What did I do ? I replaced the card with an nVIdia card, and the system has been stable since.
So you see, I too can skew things to make anyone look bad also, and in the end, it would only serve to make me look like the dork. But if you want to pay more, for less, that is perfectly fine by me.
Pirks - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
I've got all problems and crappy drivers (especially Linux ones) only from ATI while nVidia software was always much better in my experience. power hungry noisy monsters made by whom? by ATI! as always :) same shit as with their x1800/x1900 miserable power guzzling seriesdiscrete video cards are not going away any time soon. ever heard of integrated video used in games, besides ones from 2000, like old Quake 2? no? then please continue your lovefest with ATI, but for me - it looks like I'll pass on them this time again - since Radeon 9800Pro they went downhill and continue in that direction. they MAY make a decent integrated CPU/GPU budget-oriented vendor in a future, for all those office folks playing simple 2D office games, but real stuff? nope, ATI is still out of the game for me. let's see if they manage to come back with reincarnation of R300 in future.
ironically, AMD CPUs on the other hand have best price/performance ratio, so intel won't see me as their customer. I wish ATI 3D chips were as good as AMD CPUs in that regard (and overclockers please shut up, I'm not bothering to OC my rig because I don't enjoy benchmark numbers, I enjoy REAL stuff like games, and Intel is out of the game for me as well, at least until their budget single core Conroes are out)
utube545 - Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - link
Get a clue, you fucking cretin.dragonsqrrl - Thursday, August 25, 2011 - link
haha... lol, wow. facepalm.dragonsqrrl - Thursday, August 25, 2011 - link
Damn you're a fail noob of an ATI fanboy. Time has not been kind to the HD2900XT, and now you sound more ridiculous then ever... lol.yzkbug - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
Not a word about new AVIVO HD and digital sound features?DerekWilson - Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - link
we mentioned this ...on the r600 overview page ...
photoguy99 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
First to be clear and I do not condone the title of this article, there's no need to bring racism into this.But my point is NVidia can and will react by making the performance per dollar competitive for the R600 vs 8800GTS.
Once the prices are comparable, why buy a more power hungry part (the ATI)?
This is one disadvantage they can't correct until the next respin.
DrMrLordX - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
Based on the benchmarks results, the only reason I can see for getting 2900XTs is if a). you don't care about power consumption and b). want to run a Crossfire rig at a lower cost of entry than dual-8800 GTXs or 8800 Ultras.As others have said, some more benchmarks in mature DX10 titles might show who the real winner here is performance-wise, and that holds true for multi-GPU scenarios as well.