ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT Details & Performance Benchmarks

Advertisement (Why?)

After several delays, AMD plans to launch its long-awaited DirectX 10 lineup with the flagship ATI Radeon HD 2900 XTX. Other models such as the Radeon HD 2900 XT, Radeon HD 2600-series and Radeon HD 2400-series will also join AMD's DirectX 10 family after the initial high-end launches. AMD plans to launch the DirectX 10 product line-up in mid-May. AMD's flagship ATI Radeon HD 2900-series will have two models at launch - the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XTX (1GB of GDDR4 memory) expected to be priced at $449 and the HD 2900 XT (512MB of memory).

AMD equips the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT with 320 stream processors (compared to NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS' 96 stream processors) as well as 512MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1.65 GHz across an eight-channel, 512-bit memory interface (compared to the GeForce 8800 GTS' 640MB of 1.6 GHz GDDR3 memory on a 320-bit memory interface). The ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT features a dual-slot, blower-type heat sink. Unlike the 11.5" long OEM Radeon HD 2900-series, the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT makes use of a smaller cooler so everything fits within the 9.5" PCB. Although the R600 GPU supports HDMI audio and video output, the reference design only features dual dual-link DVI.

The benchmarks were conducted on an Intel D975XBX2 BadAxe2, Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 and 2x1GB DDR2-800 MHz. The operating system on the test system was Windows XP, with a fresh install before benchmarking each card. Testing of the AMD ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT was performed using the 8.361 Catalyst RC4 drivers, while the GeForce 8800 GTS used ForceWare 158.19 drivers. All game tests were run with the maximum detail settings at resolutions of 1280x1024.

View: Benchmarks

News source: DailyTech

(2 replies) #1 maudit on 24 Apr 2007 - 15:33

ok so through two of these in crossfire, 2Gb Video Memory

edit: and not priced through the roof! Way to go AMD :woot: I mean AMD/ATI

#1.1 Baptist on 24 Apr 2007 - 15:39

2 Gb video memory? :| i've got 1GB of normal memory and allready im surpassed by this. Even with clockspeeds my CPU has 2 Ghz and this well almost 2 Ghz. Nice!

#1.2 maudit on 24 Apr 2007 - 16:09

Quote - (Baptist said @ #1.1)

Yeah, I wonder what CPU Won't bottleneck this GPU :drool:

#2 Pippin666 on 24 Apr 2007 - 15:34

Damn lotery, why am I not winning ?!?!

Pip'

#3 TheGriffin on 24 Apr 2007 - 15:35

Impressive. I reckon ATi could be the leader in this few generations of cards since nVidia seems to have problems with drivers and ATi always seems to get it right when there is a new version of DirectX out.

#4 well... on 24 Apr 2007 - 15:40

Any news (details) of the mid range cause thats where they could really hurt nvidia!

#5 Digix on 24 Apr 2007 - 15:59

i'll be getting a couple of these babies

(1 reply) #6 Regert on 24 Apr 2007 - 16:16

Indeed, that sounds sweet. Hope the midrange cards are reasonably priced. Planning on getting two of those or one of the better. :-D

#6.1 toadeater on 24 Apr 2007 - 22:03

Quote - (Regert said @ #6)

We certainly need a midrange card that isn't DOA like the 8600 series.

(1 reply) #7 ahhell on 24 Apr 2007 - 16:24

Why are they bothering testing those cards on XP? Shouldn't they all be tested under Vista since that is what the cards are designed for?

Does ATI not have any drivers for Vista?

#7.1 rIaHc3 on 24 Apr 2007 - 17:04

Quote - (ahhell said @ #7)

Exactly.

And ATi has Vista drivers.

(1 reply) #8 ir0nw0lf on 24 Apr 2007 - 16:35

OK, now I'm confused. In one sentence, it says the HD 2900 XT has GDDR4 RAM, the next it says it has GDDR3 RAM... ??

#8.1 +Nienor on 24 Apr 2007 - 17:36

XT model as 512MB GDDR3 / XTX model as 1024MB GDDR4

(1 reply) #9 qwexor on 24 Apr 2007 - 17:04

I don't think they can afford to wait as long as Nvidia to release their midrange cards. They have a little bit of catching up to do.

#9.1 Imnotrichey on 24 Apr 2007 - 20:03

it should be okay since the midrange cards Nvidia released are not impressive at all

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2975

(2 replies) #10 LaXu on 24 Apr 2007 - 17:19

This kinda sucks because I was thinking of getting a Nvidia card this time around but if ATI again happens to come out with a product that is faster AND less expensive than the Nvidia equivalent I may be forced to stay in the ATI camp again. And that's something I really don't want to do because ATI has the worst driver control panels ever. I mean come on, a control panel that is prone to crashing and eats like 50 MB of memory? Every time they update I have to wait for 3rd parties to make a version with the old control panel. No problem with the actual drivers, just the bloated control panel.

Then there's also ATI's less than stellar Linux support...

#10.1 +Nienor on 24 Apr 2007 - 17:34

You know... CCC.EXE and MOM.EXE use only ~8MB here... and the CCC is open.
After that, just add 5MB for the driver.
The 50MB bloated panel that you know was at the time of the x800 series. I remember it, I made the switch at that time because of that.

#10.2 LaXu on 24 Apr 2007 - 18:06

Quote - (Nienor said @ #10.1)

I see. I've got a X800XL and haven't touched CCC since. Maybe I'll give it another try them.

(2 replies) #11 fantasticben on 24 Apr 2007 - 17:39

Can I put an ATi card in an nForce mobo? Will it work? I know SLi won't, but how about just the one?

#11.1 tiagosilva29 on 24 Apr 2007 - 17:57

I have a x550 with a nForce4.

#11.2 whitedragon on 24 Apr 2007 - 18:41

I have an x1900XTX in an nForce4 board, A8N32-SLI Deluxe.

#12 Lexcyn on 24 Apr 2007 - 17:50

Still no release date! I hope its soon.

#13 vacs on 24 Apr 2007 - 17:59

Unfortunately AMD's most interesting card, the 2900XTX got delayed till end of summer/fall this year but nvidia will have its 8800 Ultra out next month. Even worse for AMD is that nvidia has finally put out decent Vista drivers.

The 158.18 and 165.01 drivers offers amazing performance and compatibility under Vista. Good job nvidia, even if it took some time.

#14 Lurchybaby on 24 Apr 2007 - 18:03

Mid may for the release date, Lexcyn (according to the article).
I'm in the market for a new card, I almost bought an Nvidia 8800GTS, I'm SOOOO glad I didn't and decided to wait.

#15 Joseph21 on 24 Apr 2007 - 18:09

they are only a 3 weeks away... still the x2900 its still way faster and good priced

(2 replies) #16 El-Diablo on 24 Apr 2007 - 19:58

so the XTX is going to be around 449 american? Wow, that means about 550 canadian, that means i might get two of these hehehe.

#16.1 black_death on 24 Apr 2007 - 20:39

Quote - (El-Diablo said @ #16)

well 450 X 1.1 is almost 500 but for some reason canadian vendors like to multiply the price by 1.3 or 1.4

#16.2 PsykX on 24 Apr 2007 - 21:11

As of today, at the time of my post, the video card is worth 503,823 CAD. It'll certainly go away at a minimum price of 550 though, like you said.

It looks like a killer video card... pretty surprised, but not as much as when the 9800 Pro went out, or the 6800, ... those were the good old times

#17 mohan_168 on 25 Apr 2007 - 04:33

Testing ATI with an Intel Dual Core processor. They admit Intel C2D is better.

#18 usman767 on 25 Apr 2007 - 11:23

Looks good to me, but the thing is that the benchmarks are very basic ones. I would like to see more benchmarks with more games played at higher resolutions .
But i hop that the x 2600 series is the better one then the geforce 8600 series. So that the mid range series has a better performer ...

Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!

Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.

Neowin.net