VR-Zone x2900xt review

Keysplayr

Elite Member
Jan 16, 2003
21,211
50
91
Site is hanging. Too much traffic. Anyone who was able to see it, please post some benchie scores. Gonna be hours before I can see this site.
 

CP5670

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2004
5,660
762
126
I can't get it to load at all. VR Zone is always a bit slow, but their server must getting hammered.
 

NoStateofMind

Diamond Member
Oct 14, 2005
9,711
6
76
I've seen some of the first page with the company of hero's benchmarks. Near the end of that page they show IQ. It seems nVidia has slightly sharper image.
 

Fallen Kell

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
6,163
514
126
Basically they say the image quality is good, but Nvidia's is better. The screen shots they have tend to show that as well. That said, it is very close for some things, but when you get down to it, from what they saw and show in the article, Nvidia does have a crisper look.

They do know drivers are immature at this point. Even a single point release change (i.e. 8.36 to 8.37) gave a very decent performance boost (from 11%-42% depending on game). It does overclock fairly well, however it puts out a HUGE amount of heat and uses an INSANE amount of power (it uses 60W more then a 8800GTS stock!!).


I was really hoping that it would do better then it did so that it would force Nvidia's hand into releasing the 8900 series cards, but there is no point to do that as it simply competes against the GTS, not killing it or otherwise undercutting the price point. As a result, there is no reason for Nvidia to do anything, unless they want to twist the knife that is in AMD/ATI's gut, and then rip out their heart... AMD/ATI is really not in a good position at all. Being so late to the party, they needed this card to have either better performance, or lower cost point to gain traction in the market.
 

enz660hp

Senior member
Jun 19, 2006
242
0
0
I feel like we cant make any judgments just quite yet since the drivers are buggy, and the 8800's drivers are heavily optimized. Im not too happy with the amt of heat & power thats involved with this card, I would think ATI would be the ones that use more "advanced" tech instead of brute force clock speed & power usage.
 

schneiderguy

Lifer
Jun 26, 2006
10,801
91
91
In many non Anti-Aliasing, High Definition game settings, you have seen the X2900XT push ahead of the performance of it's closest competitor, the GeForce 8800GTS 640MB, sometimes by quite a large margin, sometimes falling behind or ahead by a small percentage. In a select few games, the GTS is slightly faster, and vice versa. When Anti-Aliasing is turned on, the X2900XT showed that it carries it off with great efficiency in games that the drivers are optimized for, performing significantly better than the GTS

seems like the 512bit memory bus helped it out at high resolutions after all (unlike that one review that said it performed best at 1024*768 )
 

TanisHalfElven

Diamond Member
Jun 29, 2001
3,512
0
76
hmm seems like this card failed. i still can't get the pictures to load but there comments clearly show the xt failing to beat even the gtses much less the gtx. sad.

and 200W. son a diddly.
 

Extelleron

Diamond Member
Dec 26, 2005
3,127
0
71
Overall the picture looks good, the only thing I am *not* happy about is power consumption. I have an HX520 so I should be alright, but I sincerely hope this is the peak of GPU power consumption and that things will go down from here. CPU power usage is going down, hopefully GPU power usage will begin going down soon as well. With ATI using 65nm for mainstream cards, we should see 65nm on the high-end soon; a 65nm refresh can't be far away so power consumption will be going down, at least for now.
 

TanisHalfElven

Diamond Member
Jun 29, 2001
3,512
0
76
Originally posted by: schneiderguy
In many non Anti-Aliasing, High Definition game settings, you have seen the X2900XT push ahead of the performance of it's closest competitor, the GeForce 8800GTS 640MB, sometimes by quite a large margin, sometimes falling behind or ahead by a small percentage. In a select few games, the GTS is slightly faster, and vice versa. When Anti-Aliasing is turned on, the X2900XT showed that it carries it off with great efficiency in games that the drivers are optimized for, performing significantly better than the GTS

seems like the 512bit memory bus helped it out at high resolutions after all (unlike that one review that said it performed best at 1024*768 )

well what they actally said was it comes closest (or beatsor remember) the gts the MOST at 1028x768

ps. it not like it has significantly more bandwidth than the gtx anyway.
also nvidia's unorthodox width allowed them to go for more than 512 mb memory that really helps at higher resolutions and more AA.
 

apoppin

Lifer
Mar 9, 2000
34,890
1
0
alienbabeltech.com
look in that other thread

even on dial up i got it *all*

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...adid=2045241&STARTPAGE=8&enterthread=y

their conclusion[/quote]
Originally posted by: apoppin
It is slightly off tradition that the GPU company's flagship product sails off not to meet the flagship of it's competitor, but one target lower. Then again, the lower we go down the price pyramid, the bigger the audience, more people with the budget to spend. I'd say that there is no clear winner between the 8800 GTS and X2900XT, the GTS displayed more consistent performance behavior while the X2900XT fluctuates around due to the in-matured driver. I would say that despite the heat thrown out by the GPU, the X2900XT overclocks better than the 8800GTS by 8-10%, but that's putting out a lot more heat and drawing more power than it already consumes. So this is something potential XT buyers should take note of, the heat produced by the card is no small amount, nor is the power consumed by it - more than 60w over the GTS. What you would be investing in is a higher potential of upcoming performance boosts (including the latest pre-Alpha 8.37.4.2_47323 Catalyst just released 3 days before this review) and full HDCP support with integrated audio controller. And of course the new programmable Tessellation technology which we will probably not see support in games until much later.

Not the fastest video card in the market for sure, but definitely holds it's own at it's current price-point. We only hope that supply will be adequate and not lead to an indirect increase in prices due to short supply. We hope to see some interesting implementations from various card partners as well, be it overclocked specifications, or improved coolers.

did *someone* mention CoH ?
Taking a setting at 1600x1200 with 16xAF, I saw a major increase in performance, particularly Company Of Heroes and Quake 4. Performance went up by 11% on COH and 42% on Quake 4! This shows that the drivers is still very raw on this card, with just a minor driver revision boosting up performance that much, it gives us quite a lot of hope for a fair bit of improvement to come. Let's hope for that!


In many non Anti-Aliasing, High Definition game settings, you have seen the X2900XT push ahead of the performance of it's closest competitor, the GeForce 8800GTS 640MB, sometimes by quite a large margin, sometimes falling behind or ahead by a small percentage. In a select few games, the GTS is slightly faster, and vice versa. When Anti-Aliasing is turned on, the X2900XT showed that it carries it off with great efficiency in games that the drivers are optimized for, performing significantly better than the GTS; while the AA efficiency is piss-poor in some games due to the raw driver which has not fully blossomed to take advantage of ATi's new GPU technology. Just take a look at how performance has boosted from Drivers 8.36 to 8.37, that shows the potential in performance growth... a whole lot of it to reap.

 

Extelleron

Diamond Member
Dec 26, 2005
3,127
0
71
Originally posted by: tanishalfelven
Originally posted by: schneiderguy
In many non Anti-Aliasing, High Definition game settings, you have seen the X2900XT push ahead of the performance of it's closest competitor, the GeForce 8800GTS 640MB, sometimes by quite a large margin, sometimes falling behind or ahead by a small percentage. In a select few games, the GTS is slightly faster, and vice versa. When Anti-Aliasing is turned on, the X2900XT showed that it carries it off with great efficiency in games that the drivers are optimized for, performing significantly better than the GTS

seems like the 512bit memory bus helped it out at high resolutions after all (unlike that one review that said it performed best at 1024*768 )

well what they actally said was it comes closest (or beatsor remember) the gts the MOST at 1028x768

ps. it not like it has significantly more bandwidth than the gtx anyway.
also nvidia's unorthodox width allowed them to go for more than 512 mb memory that really helps at higher resolutions and more AA.

The HD 2900XT has 22% more memory bandwidth than the GTX at stock and slightly more bandwidth than the Ultra as well. As for more than 512MB making a difference, at least with the R600 architecture, it doesn't. If more memory was all that was needed for better performance you'd be seeing the launch of an XTX with 1024MB of GDDR4 memory as was originally planned. I suppose it's still possible that an XTX model is being launched but it doesn't sound like it.

 

Matt2

Diamond Member
Jul 28, 2001
4,762
0
0
Very disappointing.



Nvidia has a faster card and better IQ. When was the last time that happened?
 

ShadowOfMyself

Diamond Member
Jun 22, 2006
4,227
2
0
Driver problems are obvious, and like I said, all review sites will be using 8.37, when 8.38 are already out and provide up to 30% performance IN GAMES... So, anyone buying an HD2900 will have to gamble and hope the performance really continues to go up with each driver, because by looking at reviews you wont get anything
 

TanisHalfElven

Diamond Member
Jun 29, 2001
3,512
0
76
Originally posted by: Matt2
Very disappointing.



Nvidia has a faster card and better IQ. When was the last time that happened?

geforce 3-4. ati started trouncing them after that.

5 lost.
6 was a draw but the shimmering issue kept nvidia on the losing side.
7 lost but was earlier soooo.....
8 won outright.
 

apoppin

Lifer
Mar 9, 2000
34,890
1
0
alienbabeltech.com
Originally posted by: Matt2
Very disappointing.



Nvidia has a faster card and better IQ. When was the last time that happened?

with x1800

with r8500

with Radeon DDR

and with Rage Fury 32

only the nvidia IQ is NOT better ... thos pics last night are photo chop

and *remember* we have a $400 card competing pretty well with a $650 one
-with *major* driver improvements coming and likely better DX10 perf too

not to mention those gawd-awful nvidia drivers that they STILL can''t get right --- after SIX long months

i know which one i will pick

[2950xt]

did you even read their *conclusion* ?
:Q

I'd say that there is no clear winner between the 8800 GTS and X2900XT, the GTS displayed more consistent performance behavior while the X2900XT fluctuates around due to the in-matured driver. I would say that despite the heat thrown out by the GPU, the X2900XT overclocks better than the 8800GTS by 8-10%, but that's putting out a lot more heat and drawing more power than it already consumes. So this is something potential XT buyers should take note of, the heat produced by the card is no small amount, nor is the power consumed by it - more than 60w over the GTS. What you would be investing in is a higher potential of upcoming performance boosts (including the latest pre-Alpha 8.37.4.2_47323 Catalyst just released 3 days before this review) and full HDCP support with integrated audio controller


Not the fastest video card in the market for sure, but definitely holds it's own at it's current price-point.
 

Matt2

Diamond Member
Jul 28, 2001
4,762
0
0
Originally posted by: apoppin
Originally posted by: Matt2
Very disappointing.



Nvidia has a faster card and better IQ. When was the last time that happened?

with x1800

with r8500

with Radeon DDR

and with Rage Fury 32

only the nvidia IQ is NOT better ... thos pics last night are photo chop

and *remember* we have a $400 card competing pretty well with a $650 one
-with *major* driver improvements coming and likely better DX10 perf too

not to mention those gawd-awful nvidia drivers that they STILL can''t get right --- after SIX long months

i know which one i will pick

[2950xt]

Did you read the VR-Zone review?

It's pretty clear from their IQ test that G80 has superior IQ.
 

apoppin

Lifer
Mar 9, 2000
34,890
1
0
alienbabeltech.com
did you even read their *conclusion* ?


quote:
I'd say that there is no clear winner between the 8800 GTS and X2900XT, the GTS displayed more consistent performance behavior while the X2900XT fluctuates around due to the in-matured driver. I would say that despite the heat thrown out by the GPU, the X2900XT overclocks better than the 8800GTS by 8-10%, but that's putting out a lot more heat and drawing more power than it already consumes. So this is something potential XT buyers should take note of, the heat produced by the card is no small amount, nor is the power consumed by it - more than 60w over the GTS. What you would be investing in is a higher potential of upcoming performance boosts (including the latest pre-Alpha 8.37.4.2_47323 Catalyst just released 3 days before this review) and full HDCP support with integrated audio controller


Not the fastest video card in the market for sure, but definitely holds it's own at it's current price-point.

and with driver improvements ... it could end up getting very close to the GTX
 

Bateluer

Lifer
Jun 23, 2001
27,730
8
0
I want to see how the 2900XT performs with more refined drivers. Some of those tests are obviously driver related.
 

Matt2

Diamond Member
Jul 28, 2001
4,762
0
0
Originally posted by: apoppin
did you even read their *conclusion* ?


quote:
I'd say that there is no clear winner between the 8800 GTS and X2900XT, the GTS displayed more consistent performance behavior while the X2900XT fluctuates around due to the in-matured driver. I would say that despite the heat thrown out by the GPU, the X2900XT overclocks better than the 8800GTS by 8-10%, but that's putting out a lot more heat and drawing more power than it already consumes. So this is something potential XT buyers should take note of, the heat produced by the card is no small amount, nor is the power consumed by it - more than 60w over the GTS. What you would be investing in is a higher potential of upcoming performance boosts (including the latest pre-Alpha 8.37.4.2_47323 Catalyst just released 3 days before this review) and full HDCP support with integrated audio controller


Not the fastest video card in the market for sure, but definitely holds it's own at it's current price-point.

and with driver improvements ... it could end up getting very close to the GTX

So what does that have to do with IQ?
 

Extelleron

Diamond Member
Dec 26, 2005
3,127
0
71
If you stare at a still screenshot, you might see a slight difference between ATI and nVidia. If that's what you want out of your GPU, then fine, good for you. I prefer to actually play the games.

Anyway, has anyone tested what ATI's IQ looks like w/ 24xAA + 16xHQAF?
 
sale-70-410-exam    | Exam-200-125-pdf    | we-sale-70-410-exam    | hot-sale-70-410-exam    | Latest-exam-700-603-Dumps    | Dumps-98-363-exams-date    | Certs-200-125-date    | Dumps-300-075-exams-date    | hot-sale-book-C8010-726-book    | Hot-Sale-200-310-Exam    | Exam-Description-200-310-dumps?    | hot-sale-book-200-125-book    | Latest-Updated-300-209-Exam    | Dumps-210-260-exams-date    | Download-200-125-Exam-PDF    | Exam-Description-300-101-dumps    | Certs-300-101-date    | Hot-Sale-300-075-Exam    | Latest-exam-200-125-Dumps    | Exam-Description-200-125-dumps    | Latest-Updated-300-075-Exam    | hot-sale-book-210-260-book    | Dumps-200-901-exams-date    | Certs-200-901-date    | Latest-exam-1Z0-062-Dumps    | Hot-Sale-1Z0-062-Exam    | Certs-CSSLP-date    | 100%-Pass-70-383-Exams    | Latest-JN0-360-real-exam-questions    | 100%-Pass-4A0-100-Real-Exam-Questions    | Dumps-300-135-exams-date    | Passed-200-105-Tech-Exams    | Latest-Updated-200-310-Exam    | Download-300-070-Exam-PDF    | Hot-Sale-JN0-360-Exam    | 100%-Pass-JN0-360-Exams    | 100%-Pass-JN0-360-Real-Exam-Questions    | Dumps-JN0-360-exams-date    | Exam-Description-1Z0-876-dumps    | Latest-exam-1Z0-876-Dumps    | Dumps-HPE0-Y53-exams-date    | 2017-Latest-HPE0-Y53-Exam    | 100%-Pass-HPE0-Y53-Real-Exam-Questions    | Pass-4A0-100-Exam    | Latest-4A0-100-Questions    | Dumps-98-365-exams-date    | 2017-Latest-98-365-Exam    | 100%-Pass-VCS-254-Exams    | 2017-Latest-VCS-273-Exam    | Dumps-200-355-exams-date    | 2017-Latest-300-320-Exam    | Pass-300-101-Exam    | 100%-Pass-300-115-Exams    |
http://www.portvapes.co.uk/    | http://www.portvapes.co.uk/    |