ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT: Calling a Spade a Spade
by Derek Wilson on May 14, 2007 12:04 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Sapphire's HD 2900 XT
We wanted to include some noise and overclocking performance here as well, but we don't like testing overclocking with reference or engineering samples, as they don't always reflect what we'll see on store shelves. We've got a better chance of seeing real world characteristics in boards from specific vendors.
Sapphire went to a lot of trouble to get us a board, but due to a shipping mishap we were unable to test it in time for this review. Later this week we'll take a follow-up look at R600 including overclocking and Vista performance to fill in the gaps we weren't able to cover here. We really appreciate Sapphire's efforts to help us get this coverage into our launch article, but we'll have to wait on this data.
From what we see with our engineering samples, core clock speeds of 850MHz+ are possible, but whether this will have a large impact on performance remains to be seen. We will also be working hard on getting a roundup of retail hardware out as soon as possible including overclocking, power, heat, noise, and all the other fun stuff that makes a big difference in retail hardware.
And we won't just see a bunch of cookie cutter retail designs out there either. Sapphire and others will have custom cooled and factory overclocked boards on their way as soon as possible. Even though AMD won't have the highest performing part on the market, or even a pretender to the throne, we can see a great competitor to the 8800 GTS emerge if prices and clock speeds from retail partners hit the mark.
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GoatMonkey - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
That's obviously BS. This IS their high end part, it just doesn't perform as well as nVidia's high end part, so it is priced accordingly.poohbear - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
sweet review though! thanks for including all the important and pertinent cards in your roundup (the 8800gts 320mb inparticular). also love how neutral Anand is in their reviews, unlike some other sites.:pCreig - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
The R600 is finally here. I'm sure the overall performance is not what AMD was hoping for. Nobody ever shoots to have their newest product be the 2nd best. But pricing it at $399 and including a very nice game bundle will make the HD 2900 XT a VERY worthwhile purchase. I also have the feeling that there is a significant amount of performance increase to be realized through future driver releases ala X1800XT.shady28 - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
Nvidia has gone over the cliff on pricing.
I know of no one personally who has an 88xx series card. I know one who recently picked up an 8600 of some kind, that's it. I have the best GPU of anyone I know.
It's a real shame that there is so much focus on graphics cards that virtually no one buys. These are niche products folks - yet 'who is best' seems to be totally dependent on these niche products. That's patently ridiculous.
It's like saying, since IBM makes the fastest computers in the world (they do), they're the best and you should be buying IBM (or now, lenovo) laptops and desktops.
No one ever said that sort of thing because it's patently ridiculous. Why do people say it now for graphics cards? The fact that they do says a lot about the mentality of sites like AT.
DerekWilson - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
We don't say what you are implying, and we are also very upset with some of NVIDIA's pricing (specifically the 8800 ultra)the 8800 gts 320mb is one of the best values for your money anywhere and isn't crazy expensive -- it's actually the card I'd recommend to anyone who cares about graphics in games and wants good quality and performance at 1600x1200.
I would never tell anyone to buy an 8600 gts because nvidia has the fastest high end card. In fact, in this article, I hope I made it clear that AMD has the opportunity to capitalize on the huge performance gap nvidia left between the 8600 and 8800 series ... If AMD builds a part that performs in this range is priced competitively, they'll have our recommendation in a flash.
Recommending parts based on value at each price or performance segment is something we take pride in and will always do, no matter who has the absolute fastest hardware out there.
The reason our focus was on AMD's fastest part is because they haven't given us any other hardware to test. We will absolutely be talking a lot and in much depth about midrange and budget hardware when AMD makes these parts available to us.
yacoub - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
$400 is a lot of money. Not terribly long ago the highest end GPU available didn't cost more than $400. Now they hit $750 so you start to think $400 sounds cheap. It's really not. It's a heck of a lot of money for one piece of hardware. You can put together a 650i SLI rig with 2GB of DDR2 6400 and an E4400 for that much money. I know because I just did that. I kept my 7900GT from my old rig because I wanted to see how R600 did before purchasing an 8800GTS 640MB. Now that we've seen initial results I will wait to see how R600 does with more mature drivers and also wait to see the 640MB GTS price come down even more in the meantime.vijay333 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=1...">http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=1..."the expression to call a spade a spade is thousands of years old and etymologically has nothing whatsoever to do with any racial sentiment."
yacoub - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
Yes, a spade was a shovel long before muslims enslaved europeans to do hard labor in north africa and europeans enslaved africans to do hard labor in the 'new world'.vijay333 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
whoops...replied to the wrong one.rADo2 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
It is not 2nd best (after 8800ULTRA), not 3rd best (after 8800GTX), not 4th best (after 8800GTX-640), but 5th best (after 8800GTS-320), or even worse ;)Bad performance with AA turned on (everybody turns on AA), huge power consumption, late to the market.
A definitive failure.