First HD 2900 XT 1 GB Review

[MUYA]

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/diamond_radeon_2900_xt_1gb/

And what about the competition from NVIDIA? As a result of a recent blog post from Falcon Northwest CEO Kelt Reeves, there was some hope among ATI enthusiasts that the 1GB Radeon HD 2900 XT would put up an impressive showing against the GeForce 8800 GTX, but since the 1GB card performs so similarly to the Radeon HD 2900 XT 512MB, the performance leaderboard really hasn’t changed in our opinion: NVIDIA is still definitely on top overall.

Seems the GTX keeps in touch with the 1 GB and faster clocked version of the 2900 XT

[maxpaynez]

At least they kept it real and reflected the opinion of many people here - the word long is bold on their site too...

"NVIDIA’s latest 162.18 beta ForceWare drivers are a huge improvement over previous drivers, but NVIDIA’s driver team still has a long way to go before their Vista driver is acceptable. AMD’s Vista drivers are by no means perfect either – we ran into scaling issues under CrossFire with CoH DX10 – but they’re still further along than NVIDIA at this point."

Even FiringSquad still realized Nvidia's Vista drivers need alot of work still.

[Sazar]

Oh my goodness Dianne :eek:

:smoking:

[MUYA]

They stated both IHV's needed to work on their drivers.

But even the 1 GB monster in present games are not up GTX performance.

However, they did mention that with future games...with loads ofHDR and AA, the 1 GB and higher memory bandwidth may help.

[Madpistol]

The GTX is still on top about 75% of the time. It sucks that AMD still hasn't closed the gap between the XT and the GTX.

Come on AMD. Keep pushing.

[Amuro]

Where is the 65nm 2950 XTX?

[Mr_LoL]

Where is the 65nm 2950 XTX?
September is the last I heard from fudzilla.

[nopp0x00]

Too bad G92 is coming soon. ATI better be aiming high.

[Vasot02]

FROM FIRINGSQUAD CONCLUSSION

but since the 1GB card performs so similarly to the Radeon HD 2900 XT 512MB, the performance leaderboard really hasn’t changed in our opinion: NVIDIA is still definitely on top overall.

That says it all for me about this ATI 1GB sollution

As i said it before
ATI must move on to a new GPU (R650\R700) and not waste anymore their time with the R600

September is the last I heard from fudzilla.

Some said at Q3 2007 (August,September,Octomber) but this is based on rumors

There is no official word about this

[MUYA]

NV will not move to g90 unless absolutely neccesary in teh time frame Fudzilla suggests...maybe delayed to next year to speen bin etc

[slaWter]

NV will not move to g90 unless absolutely neccesary in teh time frame Fudzilla suggests...maybe delayed to next year to speen bin etc

I think nV will release G90 as planed in 2007. Even if ATI won't be competitive at that time. G90 is still important for nV, for example to gain market share.

[ephmrl]

NV will not move to g90 unless absolutely neccesary in teh time frame Fudzilla suggests...maybe delayed to next year to speen bin etc

TSMC is saturated with 65nm orders now, with the implication that both DAMATI and NV have large batches coming out of there in time for end of year retail boards. If the yields are good (and there are no fatal design flaws), NV will put these on the market when they can (presumably these are the G92's) since they've already committed the design to silicon. It won't make sense for them to shelve these indefinitily and wait for new 90nm orders to exclusively sell G80 just b/c of lack of competition. The harbinger of this transition to 65nm flagship lines will be a precipitous drop in GTX/GTS prices to help clear inventory before G92 is allowed to retail (and leave the old parts stranded on shelves or discounted at a loss to AIB partners).

If anything, lack of a good part from AMD would more delay G100 (or whatever they end up calling it) since silicon orders (reserving fab capacity with $$$) have most likely not been made with TSMC yet. Of course, since things change in this industry so fast, I doubt NV would be that self assured at this point, and continue with R&D as quickly as they've ever done on their prior products.

After all, only the paranoid survive :).

[Mr_LoL]

I think nV will release G90 as planed in 2007. Even if ATI won't be competitive at that time. G90 is still important for nV, for example to gain market share.
Precisely. I can't see Nvidia waiting to see what ATI comes up with before releasing a new GPU. Theres serious money to be made from releasing new cards.

[jcrox]

I can't see Nvidia waiting either.... you don't get your opponent on the ropes and then go sit in the corner and take a breather waiting for him to catch his breath and retaliate with full force..... hit him again while he's hurtin'

[hectorsm]

I can't see Nvidia waiting either.... you don't get your opponent on the ropes and then go sit in the corner and take a breather waiting for him to catch his breath and retaliate with full force..... hit him again while he's hurtin'

I totally agree with you. There is more to gain by releasing the G90 now than wating for ATI to catch up.

The new cards will also stimulate sales. I have the feeling a lot of G80 owners around here will buy the G90 as long as the price is not too high. Even if there no games to take advantage of the speed, people will buy it simply because is the latest and greatest video card around.

[Amuro]

I think nV will release G90 as planed in 2007. Even if ATI won't be competitive at that time. G90 is still important for nV, for example to gain market share.
As planned? I thought it was rummored.

[Amuro]

Precisely. I can't see Nvidia waiting to see what ATI comes up with before releasing a new GPU. Theres serious money to be made from releasing new cards.
I think Nvidia will release the part when it's ready. There was a whole 16 month going from the 7-series and 8-series, so why would this gen be any different?

[Viral]

Because there hasn't been a 7900 or a 7950 equivalent. Going on that alone this move should be more like the move from VN40/45 to G70.

[shadow001]

I totally agree with you. There is more to gain by releasing the G90 now than wating for ATI to catch up.

The new cards will also stimulate sales. I have the feeling a lot of G80 owners around here will buy the G90 as long as the price is not too high. Even if there no games to take advantage of the speed, people will buy it simply because is the latest and greatest video card around.


Keep in mind though that it's likely that there's a lot of G80 based cards still stocked up in inventory,so releasing the G90 ASAP,will mean Nvidia having to sell those 8800 cards off at a discount....Given that the 8800GTX still retains the crown for the fastest card currently on the market,i'm sure Nvidia will milk G80 sales for as long as possible,and fetching top dollar for each one.



GPU companies only release new cards when they feel that competitors have an impressive card in the works,and given that ATI has shown their hand with the X2900XT,and that any update from them is at least 4~5 months away,Nvidia can easily wait,keep refining the G92 into working at higher clock speeds and using less power,and release it only after ATI's refresh is out.....No need to kill the G80 gravy train just yet;) :D

[radekhulan]

Seems the GTX keeps in touch with the 1 GB and faster clocked version of the 2900 XT

In some games, yes, but in others NVIDIA is 2x faster, seems like R600 is still like a "box of chocolates", you never know what performance you gonna get, single 8800GTX being better then 2x 2900XT-1G in Crossfire:

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/diamond_radeon_2900_xt_1gb/images/s1920.gif

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/diamond_radeon_2900_xt_1gb/images/cod22048.gif

NVIDIA needs competition. I would love to buy 8900GTX soon :)

[Sazar]

As planned? I thought it was rummored.

It was a planned rumour.

[mynakedrat]

hmm, my call of duty 2 with those settings are about 25% higher...

oh, you were "quoting" a "review site"

gotcha

[john19055]

The few games I play always has better results then some of the review sites ,but maybe they had the older drivers ,because the newer drivers have increased the performance in most games,but I don't know if the 1gig is any better then the 512mb version since it has so much bandwidth to begain with.But it should help if you are playing at 2560x1600 on a nice 30" LCD .