Tweaktown HD 2900XT Review

Chris_B said:
:rolleyes: Got to love the kids in these parts.
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Do you really think it's that unreasonable of an assertion? Doesn't it make sense than if nVidia can compete very well with ATi in gaming (and right now I'd say they're better), and they can also do a really good job with all the other stuff that ati dismisses as unimportant, that their driver team is better?

Maybe an analogy would help. Let's say we're both in the Olympics. And we tie for the gold in, say, boxing. But then I win golds in the decathlon, swimming, volleyball, and maybe ice hockey, and you get a couple of silvers here and there but no more golds.

Who's the better all around athlete?

And calling me a child doesn't count as a valid response.
 
Chris_B said:
Dunno what you're being so doom and gloom about, with one driver change the performance improved a lot for the xt
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Yeah, but we have no idea what kind of expanse there was between these two driver versions. It could be one day worth of tweaks and optimizations or six months. It's difficult to be able to look at a version change and try and guess as to how large a differential there is between the two drivers. Perhaps 8.36 was a plagued version that slipped out, or perhaps 8.37 represented a simple flip of a "switch", and we can expect many more to come. It's all speculatory at this point.
 
Chris_B said:
Dunno what you're being so doom and gloom about, with one driver change the performance improved a lot for the xt, the card obviously is not being shown to its full potential so far and it may take a few weeks for drivers to come available to let ti show what it can do.

Also we have the lost planet dx10 demo tomorrow, what if the xt spanks the gtx in that or at the very least is as fast as the gtx?
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if by doom and gloom you mean the apparent reality that the R600 was not worth the wait....then yeah...ok, doom and gloom, it is what it is, but so far i have seen three different reviews of the card and so far >95% of the time the 8800GTX comes out on top, which is not even taking into account the 8800 Ultra which is another 5-10% faster than the GTX, of course it is overpriced and not worth it

i am just stating the obvious based on all of the reviews that have been released so far, there is a common trend

8800GTS < HD2900 < 8800GTX < 8800Ultra

now if one review showed it stomping the other cards and then another showed it getting beaten badly, i would be more skeptical, but as of right now, all of the leaked reviews show the same basic thing, that the R600 was not worth the wait, which is what i have suspected for a long time now, typically we hear alot of hype and see alot of leaked benchies, but R600 has been so tightly held secret and it was for one of two reasons, either it was going to be a massive success and they really had a lockdown on info, or it was going to be a late to market disappointment, it's fairly obvious the latter was the case

yeah yeah yeah, ATI could pull a rabbit out of the hat with some sort of miracle super secret driver....ok...if that happens, fine, but that's typically not the case, so it happened once in the past...ok....all i can say is lets see it again, otherwise, don't bother, they have had waaayyy more time to make the hardware faster without needing a crutch driver tweak to beat the 8800's, but they didn't, they dropped the ball, so dont expect any miracles from the driver
 
nobody_here said:
if by doom and gloom you mean the apparent reality that the R600 was not worth the wait....then yeah...ok, doom and gloom, it is what it is, but so far i have seen three different reviews of the card and so far >95% of the time the 8800GTX comes out on top, which is not even taking into account the 8800 Ultra which is another 5-10% faster than the GTX, of course it is overpriced and not worth it

i am just stating the obvious based on all of the reviews that have been released so far, there is a common trend

8800GTS < HD2900 < 8800GTX < 8800Ultra

now if one review showed it stomping the other cards and then another showed it getting beaten badly, i would be more skeptical, but as of right now, all of the leaked reviews show the same basic thing, that the R600 was not worth the wait, which is what i have suspected for a long time now, typically we hear alot of hype and see alot of leaked benchies, but R600 has been so tightly held secret and it was for one of two reasons, either it was going to be a massive success and they really had a lockdown on info, or it was going to be a late to market disappointment, it's fairly obvious the latter was the case

yeah yeah yeah, ATI could pull a rabbit out of the hat with some sort of miracle super secret driver....ok...if that happens, fine, but that's typically not the case, so it happened once in the past...ok....all i can say is lets see it again, otherwise, don't bother, they have had waaayyy more time to make the hardware faster without needing a crutch driver tweak to beat the 8800's, but they didn't, they dropped the ball, so dont expect any miracles from the driver
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so you can be quoted on this... Ati dropped the ball you need not see any more evidence.

even with no dx-10 scores or final drivers?
 
POPEGOLD said:
so you can be quoted on this... Ati dropped the ball you need not see any more evidence.

even with no dx-10 scores or final drivers?
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no there's still time to pull a rabbit out of the hat...with a slight chance a driver would do it, or that DX10 performance will be very very different, again, i think a slight chance, but i honestly would be very very surprised if either happens, which is why i have thought all along that it was taking so long and they were being sooo tight lipped all along compared to previous launches, they knew they needed all that time just to get near being "up to par" with what had already been out there for a long time (G80), personally, i say too little too late, it's going to be the next release that will shine hopefully because this one so far is nothing more than getting minimally competitive
 
Wow, review @ vr-zone just makes me think how much a bargain the 8800GTX is since its soooo much faster than the GTS :eek:
 
Super driver or DX10 performance aside (unless its like ~35% or more faster than G80) I think the point everyone is making is that SIX months later ATi is basically equalling what nVidia has been offering for that entire time. Besides, we all know 8800 series price cuts are incoming, and then ATi will be offering GTS performance for more money. Doesn't make sense to me.
 
^eMpTy^ said:
Do you really think it's that unreasonable of an assertion? Doesn't it make sense than if nVidia can compete very well with ATi in gaming (and right now I'd say they're better), and they can also do a really good job with all the other stuff that ati dismisses as unimportant, that their driver team is better?

Maybe an analogy would help. Let's say we're both in the Olympics. And we tie for the gold in, say, boxing. But then I win golds in the decathlon, swimming, volleyball, and maybe ice hockey, and you get a couple of silvers here and there but no more golds.

Who's the better all around athlete?

And calling me a child doesn't count as a valid response.
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Yep... the fan-girls are just bitter, let them be and ignore them :).

poison123 said:
Either way doesn't look like GTS/GTX Owners are going to need to trade up :rolleyes:

I'm glad I didn't wait for it.
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100% agree, I bought my 8800GTS 640 over 5 months ago and have been enjoying it since. I waited one month because of the R600's supposed uberness, then decided to just jump since it looked to be not so great even back then and looked to be delayed over and over.
 
According to the guys at Rage, the card is simply optimized more for DX10 than DX9 legacy titles. As each of these API's require their own transistor space, ATI has apparently looked to the future and made DX10 performance their number one priority. This would also seem to explain why ATI held back the card; maybe they were waiting for more DX10 titles to become available before they released their next gen card?

While there hasn't been any benchmarks done, the guys over at Rage are saying the card could be a full 2 to 3 X faster than a GTX in DX10 games - much higher than their original 50 - 70 % performance estimates.
 
www.vr-zone.com/?i=4946&s=1

A full 20 pages long :D

A whole six months after the G80 and the R600 is.... well... quite underwhelming. It's a little better here, not so good there, it seems if you own a GTX or GTS don't feel bad as all AMD/ATI have done is "catch up".
 
loafer87gt said:
According to the guys at Rage, the card is simply optimized more for DX10 than DX9 legacy titles. As each of these API's require their own transistor space, ATI has apparently looked to the future and made DX10 performance their number one priority. This would also seem to explain why ATI held back the card; maybe they were waiting for more DX10 titles to become available before they released their next gen card?

While there hasn't been any benchmarks done, the guys over at Rage are saying the card could be a full 2 to 3 X faster than a GTX in DX10 games - much higher than their original 50 - 70 % performance estimates.
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So what Direct X 10 games have come out since then?

none.....

oh wait, the three year old Halo 2? but its not out yet :(


I highly doubt the above statement. Have they already tested this on multiple direct X 10 games? Man where are they? I wish I could test it on those games that arent out yet, and make claims.

All I can say is dont count your eggs until they are hatched. I cant wait to see if the reviews tomorrow make the HD2900 hold up to the long wait. My personal oppinion is that ATI has an inferior product, and they kew it. They took all that extra time to try to come up with something "AS" powerful as the 8800GTX, and still failed. I could be wrong, but we will see tomorrow atleast as far as Direct x 9, and in the next few months (hopefully) as the first few direct X 10 games come out.
 
I'm confused about something. Wasn't the 2900 XTX meant to compete with the 8800 GTX, and the XT with the 8800 GTS? If so, then why are people badmouthing the XT so much? I understand that the XTX didn't get released and might not ever get released, but regardless, if the XT wasn't meant to compete with the GTX to begin with, why do the results surprise anyone?
 
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