By latest news R6xx series should be released today

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gerald.marley/index.htm

that's really strange, I seem to recall there were several previews on the net which stated that the 2900XT could outperform the 8800GTX by a bit, and the 8800GTS by a wide margin.

Or are those fake now??

To me the R600 uses far to much power also the reason I'm leaving it aside, as for now in DX9.0c as OpenGL 2.0 apps my allready exsisting X1900 XTX + X1950 XTX CrossFire Setup is powerfull enough and yeaps the out come of the tests was rather dissapointing in a way,ofcourse the card an run core/mem 1Ghz but it would then use far too much power compared what it would use @ 740/ 1650 Mhz, also a reason why AMD/ATi give the HD 2900 XT those speeds.

The card it's self was aimed at the 8800 GTS series as which in most cases the HD 2900 XT defeats the 8800 GTS cards qua overall performance, but when in CrossFire it even defeats SLI GTX as Ultra setups,  why the card performs so bad is that it's 320 shaders aren't running fast enough and mostly it all comes to poor driver optimization which can only improve over the months.

Do keep in mind that the R600 is rather new orsay just released and that the G80 exsists for about a good 7 months which drivers are far more worked out as stable as that of the new ATi competitor many people don't even think about this part which does play a very important role.

The XTX model will be getting the smaller R650 VPU which is baked on a 0,65 micron process which uses alot les power than the 0,80 micron R600.

RV630 has 390M transistors @ 65nm, it performs the same that of a  X1950GT/Pro and only uses 45W. A R580 has 384M transistors @ 90nm which uses about 130W but is a little faster. Dus stroomverbruik per transistor is enorm omlaag gegaan, terwijl de performance per watt flink omhoog is gegaan. The performance per watt shall be alot greater than that of the R580 as the energey used per transistor has decreased quite alot compared to that of the R580 as well, so a HD 2900 XTX with an AMD ATi R650 @ 65nm should deliver alot more performance per watt thereby getting a much higher core speed than the R600 and hereby using alot less power, I suppose that this card should shake the place a little more.

Here another nice review from Toms Hardware Guide
Tom's Hardware Guide's HD 2900 XT Review

They see it alot more possitive to be honest and if you would think of the architecture which is more future based than that of the G80 it does make sense in a way that is:

"At $400 for the version we have in the lab, it is a good price as it has more to offer than the GeForce 8800GTS.

Overall, HD2900XT is more forward looking than GeForce 8800 and it should be; it took an extra six months getting it to market. "

Anyways like I mentioned before Drivers do Miracles
http://www.computerbase.de/news/treiber/gr...eibervergleich/


Here a nice OC done with a Sapphire HD 2900XT Nice scores too which was achieved with stock cooling 8)
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=144247

3D Mark 2001SE : 62863
3D Mark 03 : 42872
3D Mark 05 : 20158
3D Mark 06 : 13742

Here the card and how it was setup for the OC test runs:




and if you want reviews where here's a whole bunch I found a few days ago




Anandtech
Beyond3D
Bjorn3D
Chile  Hardware
Computer Base.De
Cubic
Digit Life
Driver Heaven
Extreme Tech
Architecture Analysis
Firing Squad
Guru3D
Hardware Info
Hardware Secrets
Hexus
HardOCP
Hot Hardware
Legit Reviews
OC Workbench
PC Perspective
PC Presence
T-Break
Tech Power Up
The Inquirer
The Tech Report
Tom's Hardware
Tweakers.net
Tweak Town
VR-Zone

It's just that the R600 is so new it still has to get optimized properly for the applications out there ,once the people start using it then AMD/ATi can start fixing problems like all other generations

also found a nice article about the minimum fps the HD 2900XT does compared to the X1950 XTX and the 8800 GTX

okay 3 totally different classes as GPU's/VPU's but just to get the idea how efficient the 512Bit memory bus really can be, take a look at this nice article 8)
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1100/11/...roes/index.html

The 8800 GTX looks like a bigger frame dropper than the 2900 XT if you compare the frame drops when FSAA + AF is enabled

here a nice graph on how powerfull the Vertexshader processing really is, quite amazing really:


The reason why the gap is so big is that because AMD chose for 5 Way Scalar Madds instead of a Vec4 + Scalar which the previous DX9 series used

So for people that like doing CAD as 3d Modelling the R600 is deffintely TeH VPU for you, since Vertexshader processing take a very big deal in that area as up comming OpenGL 2.1 applications.

Here some reviews about the image quallity of the new CFAA modes as settings

ATI 8x + Wide Tent


nVidia 16xQ


about the EATM part that can be found in the review:
http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2007q2/radeon-hd-2900xt/index.x?pg=8

As the advantages as the disadvantages of CFAA are clearly explained here as well:
http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2007q2/radeon-hd-2900xt/index.x?pg=6

Well there has been another good driver update, drivers 8.38 really improve the HD 2900XT's performance quite a bit!:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpo...p;postcount=175

with ATi Catalyst 8.37 the following was achieved:
3dmark 2006: 12086 Marks
Dark Messiah: 63 FPS



With ATi Catalyst 8.38 the improved following was achieved 8)
3dmark2006: 12530 Marks
Dark Messiah: 78 FPS


somewhere on this chinese site the 8.38 drivers tests were found
http://chiphell.com/viewthread.php?tid=394...tra=&page=3

So as you can see the hardware is perfect and while the drivers keep on getting better so will the total performance of the hardware

yeaps and it will only get better anyways i will leave it aside since my CrossFire setup give me enough fun as for now I need a new mobo since my bios chip has died lol

Oh well the X800XT PE will keep me occupied for a moment untill I get a replacement board or bios chip for this problem   8)

yeaps the HD 2600XT will also only slurp 45 watts which is very nice for a 380 million transistored chip @ 65nm 8) The RV630 is going to be a success by the looks of this.

Quote:

The card was aimed @ the top - as a GF 8800 Ultra rival, but it surpasses only the mid-ranged & 80euros cheaper GTS by a margin. It's a good thing that AMD realized this and lowered the price on it's flagship model.

Quote:

You do have a point there - I sure hope that new drivers and DX10 apps are going to add a shine to the new R600, because the way it is now - it's nothing special. I am, for example, dissapointed...

Quote from fudzila:

"Radeon HD 2900XT leaves us wit a bitter taste. It will certainly win a lot of benchmarks versus 8800 GTS but bare in mind that 8800 GTS 320 MB is just slightly slower than the 640 MB version and is available today for 256 € including the shipping costs.

This is almost €150 difference to start with. Geforce 8800 GTX is clearly faster in every single test and can be purchased for about €100 more. It is not that much money compared to what you would get, a clear winner and performance increase. Even bigger issue is that an overclocked 8800 GTS 320 MB can easily match Radeon HD 2900XT in many cases and costs only €320 again some €80 cheaper. "

Source: http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=975&Itemid=40&...

I hope the mid-range cards ara going to have more bang for the buck. Well... Until then  8)

I agree Gary and good to see you back again mate

Well I'm stepping away from the HD 2900 XT since it's CFAA modes make the image quallity also look worse than on the half year old G80, really this is no joke.

As the power it drains I was like mkaay even in idle mode my CF setup drains less so then I was like no way hozay haha

3dfx Interactive had the same problem only thing that was about 7 years ago...
When I turn of FSAA x4 as x8 on the Voodoo 5 6000 you get the same performance drops so strange that ATi hardware of 2007 have the same problem, without FSAA the 6000 is very fast so is the HD 2900XT.

with the 6000 this was a hardware issue let's hope that this isn't the issue for the HD 2900XT...

So here is what I think of the whole situation:

The R600 VPU may have been better if it used more ram or better drivers because releasing a card while there are only alpha as betadrivers which support it only by half isn't really the right way to release a class A product this also leads to bad marketing even that it is so cheap.

The image quallity tests show clearly that the G80 gives a sharper image than that of the R600:
http://tertsi.users.daug.net/temp/R600/iq/coj_nvidia_vs_ati.html

[hover with your mouse cursor on the pic to see the ATi shot]

Since the R600 uses more blur thereby decrease the IQ when CFAA is enabled, the MSAA of the G80 gives a much clearer as sharper image quallity than the CFAA of the R600 cards, Wide Tent versus Narrowtent well narrow tent also gives a bsharper image while wide tent gives smoother FSAA only leaving lots of blur thereby leaving an overblured picture.

Lost Planet on ATi Radeon HD2900 XT:


Lost Planet on nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX:


The G80 uses Rotated Grid Multi Sample Full Scene Anti-Alliasing the way 3dfx did 7 years back but then with the help of advanced shaders to fill in the perfromance gaps.

The R600 uses CFAA for smoother way of FSAA but with lot's of performance loss, why this happens is still questioned as it shouldn't really make such a large difference performance wise, could this be a flaw in the VPU's design or should this be seen software wise?
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/r600-architecture.html

"Quality review that's for sure. but ATI needs to do something about the significant performance loss when turning up AA.."

For now I would advise the people to wait month until the drivers get better and that the research of this new VPU has more details on why it behaves so strange when FSAA is utilised and that the image quallity has a more blurred effect.

For the lads that have a G80 or a R580 CF setup as a single R580 I'd say keep what you have!!

The G80 still is the best GPU out there and in most tests it's untoutched since it has been around for half a year it's drivers are also morely bugfree.