ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT: Calling a Spade a Spade
by Derek Wilson on May 14, 2007 12:04 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The AMD HD 2000 Series Lineup
The announcement today includes a top-to-bottom lineup of DX10 class hardware including four mobile parts (with one additional DX9 mobile part sharing the HD 2000 series naming) and five desktop parts. While all of this hardware is being made public, we've only got one piece of hardware to bring to the table today: the R600 based Radeon HD 2900 XT.
Performance on all other R6xx parts won't be available until "late June", but we can still talk about what these parts will be when they finally make it to market. On the desktop, in addition to the HD 2900 XT, we will see the Radeon HD 2400 Pro and XT in the "value" segment, with the HD 2600 Pro and XT providing good mainstream-to-midrange gaming performance.
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT
ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT
ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro
There is currently no add-in retail hardware planned that tops the HD 2900 XT, but we are hearing rumors that faster parts may be available through OEMs only. This is unconfirmed at present, so take it with a grain of salt. Let's take a look at a break down of what we do know we'll be getting:
| AMD R6xx Hardware | ||||||||
| SPs | RBEs | Core Clock | TMUs | DDR Rate | Bus Width | Memory Size | Price | |
| HD 2900 XT | 320 | 16 | 740MHz | 16 | 825MHz | 512bit | 512MB | $399 |
| HD 2600 | 120 | 4 | 600 - 800MHz | 8 | 400 - 1100MHz | 128bit | 256MB | $99 - $199 |
| HD 2400 | 40 | 4 | 525 - 700MHz | 4 | 400 - 800MHz | 64bit | 128MB / 256MB | <$99 |
It's harder to pin down all the specs of the mobile parts, as all the clock speeds (and sometimes bus width) can change depending on the TDP envelope a notebook maker is working with. While we aren't certain, our best guess is that mobile parts named similarly to desktop parts will have the same internal configuration of SPs, texture units, and render back ends. The exception here is the Mobility Radeon HD 2300, which is a DX9 part based on R5xx hardware.
While 2400 and 2600 standard and XT versions will exist in the mobile space, there are currently no plans for a high end mobile part. This is very likely due to the high power draw and low performance per watt we see with AMD's 80nm R600. We don't expect to see a higher performance mobile part until AMD can get the power consumption of its higher end hardware down (likely with a process shrink).
Just for comparison, let's take a look at what NVIDIA is currently offering as well. Here's a table of all the G8x based parts on the market.
| NVIDIA G8x Hardware | ||||||||
| SPs | ROPs | Core Clock | Shader Clock | DDR Rate | Bus Width | Memory Size | Price | |
| 8800 Ultra | 128 | 24 | 612MHz | 1.5GHz | 2.16GHz | 384bit | 768MB | $830+ |
| 8800 GTX | 128 | 24 | 576MHz | 1.35GHz | 1.8GHz | 384bit | 768MB | $600 - $650 |
| 8800 GTS | 96 | 20 | 513MHz | 1.19GHz | 1.6GHz | 320bit | 640MB | $400 - $450 |
| 8800 GTS 320MB | 96 | 20 | 513MHz | 1.19GHz | 1.6GHz | 320bit | 320MB | $300 - $350 |
| 8600 GTS | 32 | 8 | 675MHz | 1.45GHz | 2GHz | 128bit | 256MB | $200 - $230 |
| 8600 GT | 32 | 8 | 540MHz | 1.19GHz | 1.4GHz | 128bit | 256MB | $150 - $160 |
| 8500 GT | 16 | 4 | 450MHz | 900MHz | 800MHz | 128bit | 256MB / 512MB | $89 - $129 |
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Roy2001 - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
The reason is, you have to pay extra $ for a power supply. No, most probably your old PSU won't have enough milk for this baby. I will stick with nVidia in future. My 2 cents.Chaser - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
Such a revealing tech article. Thanks for other sources Tom.
archcommus - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
$300 is the exact price point I shoot for when buying a video card, so that pretty much eliminates AMD right off the bat for me right now. I want to spend more than $200 but $400 is too much. I'm sure they'll fill this void eventually, and how that card will stack up against an 8800 GTS 320 MB is what I'm interested in.H4n53n - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
Interesting enough in some other websites it wins from 8800 gtx in most games,especially the newer ones and comparing the price i would say it's a good deal?I think it's just driver problems,ati has been known for not having a very good driver compared to nvidia but when they fixed it then it'll windragonsqrrl - Thursday, August 25, 2011 - link
lol...fail. In retrospect it's really easy to pick out the EPIC ATI fanboys now.Affectionate-Bed-980 - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
I skimmed this article because I have a final. ATI can't hold a candle to NV at the moment it seems. Now while the 2900XT might have good value, I am correct in saying that ATI has lost the performance crown by a buttload (not even like X1800 vs 7800) but like they're totally slaughtered right?Now I won't go and comment about how the 2900 stacks up against competition in the same price range, but it seems that GTSes can be acquired for cheap.
Did ATI flop big here?
vailr - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
I'd rather use a mid-range older card that "only" uses ~100 Watts (or less) than pay ~$400 for a card that requires 300 Watts to run. Doesn't AMD care about "Global Warming"?Al Gore would be amazed, alarmed, and astounded !!
Deusfaux - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
No they dont and that's why the 2600 and 2400 don't existochentay4 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
Let me start with this: i always had a nvidia card. ALWAYS.Faster is NOT ALWAYS better. For the most part this is true, for me, it was. One year ago I boght a MSI7600GT. Seemed the best bang for the buck. Since I bought it, I had problems with TVout detection, TVout wrong aspect ratios, broken LCD scaling, lot of game problems, inexistent support (nv forum is a joke) and UNIFIED DRIVER ARQUITECTURE. What a terrible lie! The latest official drivers is 6 months ago!!!
Im really demanding, but i payed enough to demand a 100% working product. Now ATi latest offering has: AVIVO, FULL VIDEO ACC, MONTHLY DRIVER UPDATES, ALL BUGS I NOTICED WITH NVIDIA CARD FIXED, HDMI AND PRICE. I prefer that than a simple product, specially for the money they cost!
I will never buy a nvidia card again. I'm definitely looking forward ATis offering (after the joke that is/was 8600GT/GTS).
Enough rant.
Am I wrong?
Roy2001 - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
Yeah, you are wrong. Spend $400 on a 2900XT and then $150 on a PSU.