R600: Finally DX10 Hardware from ATI

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Yeah... I agree. But, there are always going to be drama queens that are like "ATI IS DEAD! ARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!".

Anyway, ATI appears to have some setbacks at the moment, but even if the 2900 doesn't get any better it's not the end of the world (there have been plenty of times ATI has kicked nVidia's arse up and down and they are both still around).
 
I know this is a hard question to answer given that there are no DX10 games out there, but...

Reading the Tom's review, it appears the 2900 is geared toward DX10 architecture-wise (I know, 8800 is a DX10 card too, but the 2900 seems, on paper anyway, that it should be able to do it better). Is it possible that the 2900 will perform better than the 8800 in DX10 games?

I only ask because, like others, I've been sitting on the fence with an itchy trigger finger waiting for ATI/AMD to show us what they have in store for us before purchasing a new rig.

I would hate, based on these reviews/early drivers, to be disappointed with ATI and purchase the GTX now... then when DX10 games (Crysis/Alan Wake) hit the shelves find out that the 2900, with it's architecture, actually performs better.

Someone tell me what to do.

😳 🙁
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You're the lucky one who happened to have the comment on top of page three, so I read it. Yeah, you're thrilled to death that some moron on a hardware forum read yours I know (try the lottery, today may be your luckey day :lol: )

As I stated in my last comment, I personally believe (that means that the following is my opinion, and not an infallible absolute truth...saying for any fanboys who may be reading this) that it is simply too early to tell. Wait for the next ATI card first, and see what the numbers say then. If you need a video card today--at this instant in time, 4:04 PM Central Time May 14th, 2007--it appears that with the drivers used in these tests that the R600 does not best the 8800GTS, or at least trades blows with it.

So based on the information I have right now, nvidia appears to have the better deal for the money--but that could change very quickley.
 
Boy.... all this hype, just to be proved right all along. Like i said: if the r600's were going to eat the 8800's, ati wouldnt have used nda's and everything else to quiet it up. Good to see the performance is lower (not by much) than the 8800's. I just find it comical that all the ati fanboys have shot their wad already. Now we get to hear them whine... just wait for the XTX!!!

ATI=always waiting for 6 month old performance in a fancier package.
Oh wait.... the people who buy this do have one thing going for them: the pci-e power connectors for the r600 does have 2 extra pins. guess that makes them better!
 
Looking at the current benchmarks from different sites I can conlclude that the 2900XT competes with the 8800gts 320 and outdoes the 8800gts 640. Anyone that has said otherwise doesn't know how to read graphs and analyze data. And this complaining about drivers is rubbish. Drivers with new video cards are always wishy washy. The drivers will only get better.

I think people are just complaining because the 2900XT wasn't the monster release that the 8800GTX was. But it's obvious it wasn't released to compete with the GTX. Right now at newegg the 2900XT is selling for $429. Being that this card is brand new, it is very fair and competitive with the $399, 8800GTS.

Overall I think this was a good release for AMD/ATI. In my eyes it didn't disappoint. Rather it shows promise for a good competitive future.
 
Come on man. Your post is just insulting and rude, and it doesn't provide any value. It's great that you like nVidia and I'm sure we're all happy for you (heck, I am using an nVidia card right now), but posts like your last one are just a waste of everybody's time.
 
First post here.

The review is ok but I wanted to see benchmarks in D3d10. The good news for everyone is Capcom is releasing a D3d10 benchmark for LostPlanet in only 27hours. You can all download from http://www.lostplanetcommunity.com/ Then we can benchmark the cards ourselves in D3d10 the way they were designed for.

Thanks to Darren for his review. I am sure we will be getting some lots of D3d10 benchies in the next few weeks anyway but who wants to wait, right?

Kindest Regards,

Mr Slartybartfast.
 
Boy.... all this hype, just to be proved right all along.

ATI=always waiting for 6 month old performance in a fancier package.
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Might as well say this in BF2, no one cares there either.

The reviews, for the most part, show that the XT has some weird issues (0FPS in XP Crossfire? Wtf?) but manages to keeps up with (With difficulty)/ beats the GTSes in almost all cases, and has some GTX (Very little, but there are a few benches I've seen that seem to be encouraging...) level performance. As these are few and far between, however, let's stick with a GTS comparison. It does as almost as good as it's competitors Mid/High card. Finally!

The power situation wasn't nearly as bad as expected, with about the same power consumption as the GTX, possibly a bit more. It also is hotter than expected. This is possibly disastrous, and may force many (like me) to wait for, say, the Rv670 (The HD2900 pro, supposedly on 65 nm).

If you were expecting the "One Video-card to Rule Them All", that's still going be the 8800Ultra and no one is stopping you from getting it, chances are it's still going to rule the roost, likely even after the XT 1GB version which is rumored to exist is released.

What the XT did show, however, is that AMD isn't quite in as bad a boat as we thought. The XT isn't horrible (It certainly isn't great, and it didn't live up to the positive expectations as nearly as it did to the poor ones, but it does show, I hate to sound fanboyish, but promise. ), what's the killer is that it took this long to get a "Mediocre" high-end card out, with enough issues to last a beta.

The good news is that the 2600s should perform ok, and be more widely accepted than this will be... that, and the new desktop Phenom (I almost said Xenom for some reason there) release should bolster AMD's efforts to put out the 65nm of this chip.

So hurry it up, AMD, get your head out of the past, ignore those GTXs, and start catering to a wider audience then the fanboys, there are enough of us here on the fence that a good, decently priced performed would woo us.

BTW: The GTS's aren't 6 month old performance. If it was, they'd be testing the release drivers, which I believe one site did.

I can't believe I just typed this essay, but whatever.
 
Right now at newegg the 2900XT is selling for $429. Being that this card is brand new, it is very fair and competitive with the $399, 8800GTS.

Overall I think this was a good release for AMD/ATI. In my eyes it didn't disappoint. Rather it shows promise for a good competitive future.
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ummm... actually, the 320mb's are going for $310 or so.

It WOULD have been a good release IF it would have been out 6 months ago when it should have been in order to keep things "competitive". With all the known issues with these right now (not like the 8800's didnt have theirs), the card was delayed for what? Not one good reason I can see yet... yes, I said YET.
Unless these cards do something miraculous under dx10, ATI has shot themselves in the foot with their delays and horrible market timing with a "cutting edge" card that hardly can claim to be that.
Ati does show promise, but I'm disappointed as hell that ATI cant even keep up on the high end. Makes me wonder if I should hold my breath on the new AMD chips. Probably not, because the way they are running things, I'll be holding it for 6-8 months after the initial launch dates.... 😳
 
what's the killer is that it took this long to get a "Mediocre" high-end card out, with enough issues to last a beta.
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I don't know, but I wouldn't call the 2900XT a "mediocre" card. I wouldn't call the 8800GTS's "mediocre" either. I would call them very good performing cards. Keep in mind they are the next best thing to the King 8800GTX.

And yeah I just saw that they lowered the price on the GTS. But it still is a good release regardless, seeing the 2900XT is brand new. But I digress, my posts aren't really directed to the foul mouthed fanbois.

ATI has shot themselves in the foot with their delays and horrible market timing with a "cutting edge" card that hardly can claim to be that.
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Perhaps it is cutting edge DX10. If it is, this card is not late. It's actual a bit early.
 
Just wanted to throw this out, if you check www.anandtech.com and check out their 2900 XT test, it says that the problem with the 2900 XT was due to bad drivers and faulty manufacturing.
 
Just wanted to throw this out, if you check www.anandtech.com and check out their 2900 XT test, it says that the problem with the 2900 XT was due to bad drivers and faulty manufacturing.
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No, thats stupid.

The alpha drivers used before the reviewers got their good drivers have proven to give the same performance. So new drivers arent going to do anything.
 
Just wanted to throw this out, if you check www.anandtech.com and check out their 2900 XT test, it says that the problem with the 2900 XT was due to bad drivers and faulty manufacturing.
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So what was good about it then? If the hardware is bad and the software is bad, what's good about waiting 8 months for them to "get it right" as some ATI engineer put it?
 
All in all, good article. Thats more like the old stuff I was missing. Now if you could just proofread a bit better, there were a few typos and grammatical errors in there that kind of bugged me, but all in all, a very well written article.

I do hope that ATI does better on their next card, and I don't mean the benchmark scores, those were fine, a tad disappointing, but fine. I mean the heat and power consumption.

We need graphics cards manufacturers to start focusing on energy efficiency like the processor companies did for the past few years. Graphics cards are just getting a wee bit absurd and desperately need a revolution. I was hoping that this was what was taking so long with the R600, that AMD was revamping it to use the smaller dies and more energy efficient methods, but alas... nope.
 
Just wanted to throw this out, if you check www.anandtech.com and check out their 2900 XT test, it says that the problem with the 2900 XT was due to bad drivers and faulty manufacturing.
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No, thats stupid.

The alpha drivers used before the reviewers got their good drivers have proven to give the same performance. So new drivers arent going to do anything.

according to who?
the first reviews had terible rainbow six vegas scores too
and in the few websites who did rainbow six vegas benchies, they show HUGE (30% ) improvement in this game over the older drivers ( from .36 to .38 )
 
No, thats stupid.

The alpha drivers used before the reviewers got their good drivers have proven to give the same performance. So new drivers arent going to do anything.
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I think that's a pretty stupid comment to make. Of course I should expect nothing less coming from you. We've already seen improvements from the first drivers. Improving the drivers most certainly can help.
 
The benchmarking here is poor...... why not compare it to the 640MB 8800GTS which is in the same price range? Why only show CF/Sli results for Vista? Another badly thought out article.... who comes up with this junk? :evil:
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I agree. What a load of crap. I want to see what having one of these cards in my system with Vista will do but sadly Tomshardware don't want to tell me........
 
No, thats stupid.

The alpha drivers used before the reviewers got their good drivers have proven to give the same performance. So new drivers arent going to do anything.
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Looks like the Alpha drivers did help some situations, so what you're saying isn't reflected by all tests (BF2142 and Oblivion with AA);

http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2007q2/radeon-hd-2900xt/index.x?pg=12

http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2007q2/radeon-hd-2900xt/index.x?pg=13

I don't know aht future drivers will bring and I'm not one for relying on 'magic drivers', but it's obvious that there was a difference in the alphas that The Tech Report had a chance to play with.

So the assumption new drivers will do nothing is ignorant especially consideirng how new drivers helped the G80 series at launch and even recently. I don't expect it to do much 'dramatic' but I wouldn't be surprised if it does something positive, contrary to what you state.
 
Right now at newegg the 2900XT is selling for $429. Being that this card is brand new, it is very fair and competitive with the $399, 8800GTS.

Overall I think this was a good release for AMD/ATI. In my eyes it didn't disappoint. Rather it shows promise for a good competitive future.
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ummm... actually, the 320mb's are going for $310 or so.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814122022
$269.99 after MIR.
 
Yeah it's got some interesting views, and I like their usually out of the ordinary approach. I wouldn't rely solely on their review, but they usually go into a bit more depth than some.

The one I'm waiting for the most is usually the last, but also usually the most complex, and that's Xbit Labs. I expect them shortly as they usually benchmark retail cards and have a huge benchmark list so they are usually a little while behind the others but they test older and not-the-norm type of games which gives you more depth than most.

I'm waiting for Digit-Life's english version to come through, but it keep linking me to news articles;
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/video/r600-part3.html

The Russian one is up, but I don't know enough Russian to make sense of anything but the pics;
http://www.ixbt.com/video3/r600-part1.shtml

Although those have some interesting looks into the theoretical results from tests like 3Drightmark, etc.
 
OpenGL is getting two major specification changes this year. The first will streamline GL as well as give it full to all of the features DX9 hardware has to offer. That specification is called "Long's Peak" while the second is called "Mount Evans." The second will bring the functionality of DX10 hardware to OpenGL. Here is an article by Barthold Lichtenbelt at NVIDIA who also is the Khronos OpenGL ARB Steering Group chairman.
(http://www.opengl.org/pipeline/article/vol003_1/) Hopefully this will spur some more OpenGL development but for now it is heavily D3D for most games for Vista.
 
Good links Grape.

I am working on coming up with some ways to test the shader horsepower. NV's G80 seems to be PS lopsided while it also has some serious texture horsepower. Based on some simple calcs, NV should not be able to fulfill uncompressed texture fill needs.

Mem B/W (MB/s)

8800 GTX 86,400
8800 GTS 64,000
2900 XT 105,600

Core clock (MHz)

8800 GTX 575
8800 GTS 500
2900 XT 742

Tex units

8800 GTX 32
8800 GTS 24
2900 XT 16

Tex fetch rate (Gtex/s)

8800 GTX 10.80
8800 GTS 8.00
2900 XT 11.87

One person at NV said I was correct while another said I was wrong... the person that said I was wrong has yet to tell me why... still waiting. Granted this calc does not take into effect compression but with HDR that is not a huge thing. There is a lot more to test and quite frankly, Nvidia does not like sharing how it does things. They believe there is no point in giving any detailed information out. They feel it is just like handing ATI and Intel their technology.

The stuff from http://www.ixbt.com/video3/r600-part2.shtml is just another confirmation of it.
 
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