2950XT has high clock speeds.

[KasuCode]

825/2,400MHz


We got our hands on what looks like the final specificationd of the RV670XT card. This one will run at an impressive 825MHz for the engine and 2,400MHz for the memory. It has 320 Stream processors just as many as the R600, but it's limited by the 256-bit memory controller.



It is a DirectX 10.1, PCIe 2.0 card with Shader model 4.1 support and it's a 55 nanometre design. This will be the first graphics chip ever to be produced at 55 nanometre.




The Radeon HD 2950XT card will only use GDDR4 memory, while the 2950PRO will end up with GDDR3 at some modest speed. This GPU is planned for introduction in November and ATI's partners are really excited about it.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3481&Itemid=1

[Revs]

Wow. That's looks very good if the specs are any sort of indication of the performance. Looking forward to seeing how it does.

I really hope it's a GTX killer. We need to get some competition back in the game.

[Redeemed]

Wow. That's looks very good if the specs are any sort of indication of the performance. Looking forward to seeing how it does.

I really hope it's a GTX killer. We need to get some competition back in the game.

Honestly, I think in most situations the current 1GB XT could be the GTX's equal... if it weren't for the drivers. In some games the XT screams ahead of the GTX, in others it hovers between the GTS and GTX, while in others still it lags behind both cards... the performance seems too random for that to be *purely* a hardware fault. I'm betting drivers do have a part to play in it.

So... with that said, a card can really only be as good as it's drivers- and vice versa. Remember the GTX and GTS for the first few weeks after their release? :p

[trinibwoy]

Remember this card only has a 10% faster clock than the XT and less bandwidth. So performance expectations should be formed with that in mind. The big deal here is getting XT performance for $250-$300.

[KasuCode]

I bet it will overclock to 1ghz easy on water.

[DRen72]

These cards could do wonders if they could get Crossfire support for every game.

[3DBrad]

Ya'll are missing the point, the reason the 2900xt is so "sketchy" is because it does horrible with fill-rate intensive games, while really pushing for more transform rate capabilities, which was rather ignorant on ATI's part.

The whole architecture is misguided, as can be seen by the fact that the 512 2900xt beats the 1gb 2900xt, and sometimes, the 1900xtx beats th 2900xt. ;)

[SH0DAN]

Wow. That's looks very good if the specs are any sort of indication of the performance. Looking forward to seeing how it does.

I really hope it's a GTX killer. We need to get some competition back in the game.



Highly doubt it,as it will have a 256 bit external bus.

[Saintster]

These new cards are going to be nice. I'm waiting for 10 series this time gonna skip the 9 but for someone with a 7 series Nov.would be a great time to upgrade.

[nopp0x00]

Honestly, I think in most situations the current 1GB XT could be the GTX's equal... if it weren't for the drivers. In some games the XT screams ahead of the GTX, in others it hovers between the GTS and GTX, while in others still it lags behind both cards... the performance seems too random for that to be *purely* a hardware fault. I'm betting drivers do have a part to play in it.

So... with that said, a card can really only be as good as it's drivers- and vice versa. Remember the GTX and GTS for the first few weeks after their release? :p

The drivers ... the drivers, yet it still gets its ass kicked over and over. The GTX never had problems these bad even with its sketchy drivers that gave some people problems. Maybe the 2900XT just sucks.

And at this point beating the GTX with the 2950XT will be little consolation given how old the part is and the fact that we're probably going to see a high-end part in November by Nvidia to smack down the 2950XT or whatever else they have: badly.

[mtl]

Couldn't agree more!!

[mtl]

Read the PC Perspective review on DX 10 after we had to listen to endless excuses about the 2900's drivers and how great it would be in DX 10, it still is way behind Nvidia.
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?type=expert&aid=461&pid=2
The NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB makes a great second option though for users with a slightly smaller budget. This card still does very well under Vista with the DX10 games and keeping another $150 in your pocket never hurt anyone. The let down for me here was the Radeon HD 2900 XT from AMD; the card was only able to get off the bottom post in our results in a single test (Call of Juarez) and the multi-GPU results of CrossFire were abysmal when compared to what NVIDIA's SLI was able to accomplish. AMD needs to put some work into the GPU segment if they want to maintain any kind of technological level with NVIDIA's products, whether that would require software fixes or hardware re-spins.

[SH64]

Hmmm why did ATi do away with the 512-bit bus width ?

[wEEt]

Going to be a powerful card, but let's see what Nvidia will offer. There are some heavy speculations in these days.

[Lfctony]

Hmmm why did ATi do away with the 512-bit bus width ?

Perhaps it was too expensive to implement while offering no performance benefits. They must have some reason, or the fud is spreading fud again.

[giverz]

unless ATI has increased number of ROPS and TMUs, this will not even come close to the GTX. its just a cheaper, cooler version of the R600 with useless dx 10.1, from what ive read.

[giverz]

Ya'll are missing the point, the reason the 2900xt is so "sketchy" is because it does horrible with fill-rate intensive games, while really pushing for more transform rate capabilities, which was rather ignorant on ATI's part.

The whole architecture is misguided, as can be seen by the fact that the 512 2900xt beats the 1gb 2900xt, and sometimes, the 1900xtx beats th 2900xt. ;)


yeah its like ATI was drunk when they made the r600. they gave it useless amounts of memory bandwidth, and cut corners where it matters, fill rate.

i mean, anyone of us schmucks had ATI revealed to us the specs on the r600 before actually selling it, could have told them it would fail. amazing how a company can be so blind and so completely away from reality.

[coldpower27]

Hmmm why did ATi do away with the 512-bit bus width ?

IMHO, I don't think that 512Bit Bus did very much with a card at this level of performance to begin with, this card is shader fillrate limited rather then memory bandwidth limited. Not to mention since this is 55nm and the die size has decreased, I don't believe it can support the 512Bit Interface anymore.

[K007]

These new cards are going to be nice. I'm waiting for 10 series this time gonna skip the 9 but for someone with a 7 series Nov.would be a great time to upgrade.

:D:D