Radeon HD 2900 XT vs. 320MB 8800 GTS @ [H]

When both cards are stock I believe the GTS 640mb to be the better buy, provided the price is lower.

I will be very interested to see what happens when you fellows compare an overclocked GTS 640 MB vs a HD 2900XT at around 850 or so on the core.

It's a shame AMD couldn't get the leakage under control so they could release some of these cards at closer to 1k on the core.
 
Well it did not come as suprise that AMD could not get any rabbits out of the hat in just couple driver releases, not waiting for that to happen in the future either. My only problem is this:

Lost Planet is a fun game, plain and simple; we had a blast playing through the demo. If this is the future of gaming then we are very happy.
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May I say "Noooooooooo" in Darth Vader style. This game seems to be just another mindless shooter with adrealine rush and superman reflexes needed, gah Iam sick and tired of these games without any real content. There hardly seems to be games coming out these days in which you have to use your brains. But thats is just a personal opinion, good game to benchmark 3D cards, that I have no doubt about :)
 
I am just a little surprised that so many here,have soo much invested in this personally,and take it so damn seriously :eek: Eithier some have no life at all,or are drawing a paycheck from said company.I have purchased ATI and
AMD in the past and will happily do so in the future if they put out a product that at least competes,and beats what I have currently,without turning my pc into a furnace.


The fat lady has sung,and her voice cracked.Maybe next time...

Great review as usual,and keep up the fantastic work Kyle and company ! :)
 
excelent review guys, i'm really looking to buy GTS 320MB, honestly i've never had a thought about comparing GTS 320MB with 2900XT 512MB, surprisingly GTS 320MB competes well, i'm kinda wow!.
thanks a lot kyle & brent.
 
Technoob said:
That would be an empirical way of evaluating reviews. This person's standard of review is apparently "a review with impeccable methodology that shows results which deviate from my expectations or hopes is a "bad" review."
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Or perhaps a review that doesn't give me info but instead makes me have to trust a reviewer about the maximum playable results is a bad review .


The review i linked to shows very diffrent results. sure its vista 64 but that is known as a slower less stable system and it still performs faster with higher fsaa amounts .

so the question is are these reviews at hardocp really the highest possible playable settings ? if so why can the same card play with higher settings in a slower and less stable os
 
gljvd said:
so the question is are these reviews at hardocp really the highest possible playable settings ? if so why can the same card play with higher settings in a slower and less stable os
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Well why are you aiming your distrust at the [H], rather than this other website? The results differ, but you seem to only rubbish this particular site. If you feel that they are in the pay of nVidia (which is one implication), come out and say it. If you're only arguing because you have a 2900XT and were hoping to see your purchase justified, this isn't the right place to do it.
 
Why are you guys using a pre production card also along with the beta drivers??? I think that's the reason its performing bad. Other sites have the Retail card and retail bios not the beta and the performnace is really good. http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1115/1/page_1_introduction/index.html Plus, With the older drivers the 2900xt was beating the 640mb and even the gtx in oblivion and stalker. It doesnt make sense:confused:
 
Check out the last few pages of that tweaktown review where they turn on 4xAA - the 2900XT is still weak. I wouldn't like to buy a card that is crippled by turning on AA. For a card at this price, I'd expect to see the vast majority of the benchmarks done with AA set as high as possible, rather than a brief mention at the end.
 
Just because a driver is in the same family doesn't mean it didn't fix debilitating issues in some games. Some users are claiming doubled performance going from 8.37 beta to official Catalyst 7.5 in STALKER.

http://xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=147978

I think it would be in [H]ardOCP's best interest to investigate this, in the risk of this latest article being significantly invalidated.
 
gljvd said:
Or perhaps a review that doesn't give me info but instead makes me have to trust a reviewer about the maximum playable results is a bad review .
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I know I would much rather look at a benchmark that in no way shape or form has anything to do with the actual gaming experience using a video card. :rolleyes:

Dude, we know you don't like our content. Enough. Your point is made. Please go away.
 
Pepsiennis said:
God... damn!!! Ouch, but that one hit the mark with a hearty "Thwack"! 'Aaaaaaaw, Citizen86, you gonna get it!'
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LOL, oops, my bad. Actually I think I'm at the bottom of the list of people trying to pick a fight in this thread ;)

mulpsmebeauty said:
Check out the last few pages of that tweaktown review where they turn on 4xAA - the 2900XT is still weak. I wouldn't like to buy a card that is crippled by turning on AA. For a card at this price, I'd expect to see the vast majority of the benchmarks done with AA set as high as possible, rather than a brief mention at the end.
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That's always been the biggest problem I've had with the card. Yes, power consumption is high, most people can deal with that. Yes it's hot, so stick a fan on it, don't let it push hot air around your case, simple as that. But if it's actually lacking the correct hardware to do AA, why is it such a high-priced card? For $xxx, I would want AA!
 
gljvd said:
Or perhaps a review that doesn't give me info but instead makes me have to trust a reviewer about the maximum playable results is a bad review .
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Reviews are better when they don't tell you what settings they used in-game, how long they ran the test for, where they ran the test, show you the image quality of the game... etc etc etc... sounds MUCH more trustworthy to me, just showing some graphs with numbers and a video card name next to them... :rolleyes:
 
gljvd said:
I"ve read other reviews that say diffrent from what you say that is all .

I also don't like the fact that you don't tell us much of anything . Well what is the 2900xts hit by going up to the next res in oblivion ? What is the radeon's hit by enabling that other 25% grass .
You fail to mention all of this .



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


their minimum fps are 28 at 19x1200 with 4x fsaa and 16 aniso that is greater than your 1600x1200 with 25fps .

Now if you consider 25fps surely 28 are playable and its a much higher res . Can the gts 320 claim to do anything near that ?

Not at all . Actually here its faster than the 640 mb oc versions of the gts .

this is vista 64bit . And its performance is great . So whats the deal on your end . Is it xp blowing or is it just your results .

I can tell u this much as a vista 64bit user i wouldn't choose a gts 320 for my gaming needs if i want to play at anything high res with fsaa and aniso . Esp not with that $320 deal that just passed at best buy and some other places where its been going for as low as $380 from time to time. When you factor in the free games its price is extremely close to the 320 meg gts and the radeon is a much better card .

THere are other reviews out there that contridict your review . I've posted plenty in the first thread that was since locked after god knows how many pages
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I chuckled when I read this.:p
 
Props to H for "Keeping it real" lol.

the Image I get when reading ATI fanboy post is a little kid running around with his fingers in his ears yelling "lalalalalalala I can't heeeeeeaaarrrr youuuuu!!"

Sorry but come on. 8 months late and this is what we get? Get real and admit defeat for now already.

"lalalalalalalalallalalalalalall......" rubbish.
 
Cybercat said:
Just because a driver is in the same family doesn't mean it didn't fix debilitating issues in some games. Some users are claiming doubled performance going from 8.37 beta to official Catalyst 7.5 in STALKER.

http://xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=147978

I think it would be in [H]ardOCP's best interest to investigate this, in the risk of this latest article being significantly invalidated.
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Agree, Too many conflicting results.
 
spaceman said:
Props to H for "Keeping it real" lol.

the Image I get when reading ATI fanboy post is a little kid running around with his fingers in his ears yelling "lalalalalalala I can't heeeeeeaaarrrr youuuuu!!"

Sorry but come on. 8 months late and this is what we get? Get real and admit defeat for now already.

"lalalalalalalalallalalalalalall......" rubbish.
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lol, are they wearing red t-shirts?
 
Citizen86 said:
lol, are they wearing red t-shirts?
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sure why not?

even if the performance was dead even or better than a GTS it still should have been BETTER after being so damn late lol.

I buy whatever works best at the time. GTX for now.
 
Pepsiennis said:
God... damn!!! Ouch, but that one hit the mark with a hearty "Thwack"! 'Aaaaaaaw, Citizen86, you gonna get it!'
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You and gljvd need to leave. Now.

Let me point you to the exclusive party AMD threw for [H] JUST prior to the release of the R600 series... where MANY prizes were given out, and [H] members were in free.


http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1189973&highlight=party+amd

Id say if ANYONE is paying [H] off, it'd be AMD... Journalistic integrity FTW. Thank you Kyle.
 
0mega said:
You and gljvd need to leave. Now.
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He was just replying to a dumb comment I made. Don't think he meant anything by it. Just replying in kind :p

Anyways, other than that, Pepsiennis hasn't been a crapper on this thread/review, mostly just glvrd who is back for a second round.
 
AxeBlade said:
Why the hell are people dissing [H]? This review shows that drivers will not bring the ATI card to the level of the 8800. I am glad the 8800GTS is dropping in price.
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Because if you don't question stuff, its won't get better. There is a difference between constructive criticism and just flamebait. What [H] does is almost a science, so with any GOOD science, it requires checking the data for anything that seems out of place, illogical, suspicious, etc. If you haven't noticed the staff is here waiting for our opinions on it to see what they might did wrong to improve on it. Honestly, if NO ONE points out flaws or discrepencies in any review, it won't get better.
 
0mega said:
Let me point you to the exclusive party AMD threw for [H] JUST prior to the release of the R600 series... where MANY prizes were given out, and [H] members were in free.


http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1189973&highlight=party+amd

Id say if ANYONE is paying [H] off, it'd be AMD... Journalistic integrity FTW. Thank you Kyle.
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And really, who can say no to a night of free food and drink, gift bags and playing on new technology? If I lived in San Francisco... NOT ME!!!
 
ATi = Garbage, the R600 is the worst chipset ever, ATI/AMD even knows this when the product was alsmot not released because of the bad performance/heat/power issues, all this time they had and couldnt even compete......the only time ati has ever been ahead of nvidia was with the 9800 series, thats it.....nvidia quickly realised they made a mistake and came back ahead with the 6800's...........now if ATI doesnt make a comeback i can see them going out of the high end market..........
 
what about company of heroes with the Latest Directx10 patch?
Also again.. seriously I am tired of xp only Vista benches.

and We need to see 64bit Vista benches. Considering Hardocp is a site based on bleeding edge peformance.. I would think it would make sense to post benches on an os that can take full advantage of 4gigs + of ram. while Vista 32 and Xp= 3.12 megs. Especially now that
64bit drivers are starting to really mature and be readily available.

Hardocp should be a site that pushes what is going to be the bleeding edge.. instead of running benches on older titles on an a greying os.

As many people saw with the Vista vs xp redo .. There were many valid reasons why this needs to be the norm as opposed to Hardocp solely relying on xp benches.
 
ReubenRosa said:
what about company of heroes with the Latest Directx10 patch?
Also again.. seriously I am tired of xp only Vista benches.

and We need to see 64bit Vista benches. Considering Hardocp is a site based on bleeding edge peformance.. I would think it would make sense to post benches on an os that can take full advantage of 4gigs + of ram. while Vista 32 and Xp= 3.12 megs. Especially now that
64bit drivers are starting to really mature and be readily available.

Hardocp should be a site that pushes what is going to be the bleeding edge.. instead of running benches on older titles on an a greying os.

As many people saw with the Vista vs xp redo .. There were many valid reasons why this needs to be the norm as opposed to Hardocp solely relying on xp benches.
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Running 32-bit apps in a 64-bit environment is not the best way to test performance. However, an article comparing the difference between 64-bit and 32-bit Vista in gaming, I would like to see. Possibly even different versions of Vista to see if that makes a difference. But that is something that would likely take a huge amount of time to do.

I do wish that all new games and apps did release 64-bit versions.
 
The Vista vs. XP benches showed that for gaming, you should still use XP because in nearly every game you will get higher FPS/better gaming experience/less headache. Now I use Vista 32bit, and it's hasn't been horrible, but still, some games/programs take a bit of working with to get them to work.

Brent and Kyle just said they are moving soon to Vista, so just wait a review or two. As for 64bit... why? Unless you're using 4gigs of RAM(which there are still only very few... most are on 2, some still on 1 gig of RAM), why give yourself the headache of 64bit? No reason. Vista 32bit should be more than enough.
 
0mega said:
You and gljvd need to leave. Now.
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Brother, I ain't going anyplace. If you truly don't like me we can take it outside, but this is a public forum (within Mr. Bennett's discretion, of course) and I have tried to stay within the rules we agreed to by posting here. So, until next time we meet...
 
Cybercat said:
Just because a driver is in the same family doesn't mean it didn't fix debilitating issues in some games. Some users are claiming doubled performance going from 8.37 beta to official Catalyst 7.5 in STALKER.

http://xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=147978

I think it would be in [H]ardOCP's best interest to investigate this, in the risk of this latest article being significantly invalidated.
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I specifically asked ATI about this driver we used before I began testing, this is a direct quote from them:

Yes. That driver is being rolled up into Cat 7.5
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Citizen86 said:
The Vista vs. XP benches showed that for gaming, you should still use XP because in nearly every game you will get higher FPS/better gaming experience/less headache. Now I use Vista 32bit, and it's hasn't been horrible, but still, some games/programs take a bit of working with to get them to work.

Brent and Kyle just said they are moving soon to Vista, so just wait a review or two. As for 64bit... why? Unless you're using 4gigs of RAM(which there are still only very few... most are on 2, some still on 1 gig of RAM), why give yourself the headache of 64bit? No reason. Vista 32bit should be more than enough.
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Precisely, XP is faster for gaming right now, period. There is no advantage to Vista for gaming at this specific moment, sure there is 1 game with a DX10 patch, and performance doesn't seem to be that great with it either due to drivers yet. Lost Planet full version game isn't out yet, the Call of Juerez DX10 patch isn't out yet, the only Vista only game is Halo 2 and it doesn't run in DX10.

When there is a reason to move to Vista we will. That doesn't preclude doing specific Vista testing where needed. Drivers are getting better though, they are in a much better place now then they were a few months ago.
 
gljvd said:
i will just stick with the good reviews. This review is another sub par one .

That is all .
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Dwight said:
LOL Well obviously [H] isn't the site for me to read reviews since I like reviews I can take seriously. :rolleyes:
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They're small, they're green, they live under bridges and terrorize baby goats...Baaa.

I'd have liked to see ATI pull one big can of whoop-ass out of their hats with the 2900XT. And while I might own an 8800GTS, I was rooting for ATI on this one. I like continued competition, innovation, and increased performance, and I do believe that at this point (compared to the reverse back in 1998-2001) ATI's drivers are more mature out of the gate. And I really had great luck with my two cards before the 8800GTS, both by ATI.

Sadly, I was disappointed. It hasn't happened, and at this point, one can save money with an nVidia card...lower price, don't need quite the power supply, system runs cooler, and less on the electric bill. As for those who talk about drivers coming in several months...I'm reminded of the Radeon 8500 in 2001. By the time the card had fully matured, its drivers were quite good, and on par with nVidia's Geforce 3 cards. However, it took too long, and since gaming tech. is a race, every month you don't meet the other guy's performance, you lose sales. It's just a fact of life. The Geforce 3 won the race, regardless of what ATI's card eventually turned out to be --and at this point, with the G80 having been out since last fall, one could effectively say it has done the same. One can only hope that ATI can dig deep and come up with something at product refresh time.
 
Brent_Justice said:
There is no advantage to Vista for gaming at this specific moment.
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Yes, so? There are many other advantages over XP that Vista has and because of which many people decided to switch to it. I've been using Vista for at least 2 months now, for everything I do (including gaming) and I don't really care about few lost FPSes in games since the overall advantages of using Vista greatly outweigh such single minor drawback :p I'm sure there are other people who will share my opinion.
That said, it was a nice review, except I would really prefer that you'd mention the driver version right in the review itself (I am talking about Nvidia's drivers) instead of using some link to get to some previous article - no, it's not hard to click on the link, but it kinda feels... well... inconvenient to do so, especially if you only have time to quickly look at the charts/pictures in the review (instead of reading every written word).
 
The problem here isnt really the card itself... Its officially stated to compete with the GTS640, which it bests, and sometimes matches the GTX, but somehow, HOCP now manages to make it perform even worse than the GTS320 while having better drivers... I bet if they make a re-review in 2 months it will be around 8600GTS level, right? :rolleyes:

Sounds like the Geforce FX... The more people talk about them, the worse they make it look, but when you actually check the card isnt so bad, it just has specific flaws that dont help it at all
 
viceroy said:
Yes, so? There are many other advantages over XP that Vista has and because of which many people decided to switch to it. I've been using Vista for at least 2 months now, for everything I do (including gaming) and I don't really care about few lost FPSes in games since the overall advantages of using Vista greatly outweigh such single minor drawback :p I'm sure there are other people who will share my opinion.
That said, it was a nice review, except I would really prefer that you'd mention the driver version right in the review itself (I am talking about Nvidia's drivers) instead of using some link to get to some previous article - no, it's not hard to click on the link, but it kinda feels... well... inconvenient to do so, especially if you only have time to quickly look at the charts/pictures in the review (instead of reading every written word).
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there are a few day to day things that vista FAILS miserably at... say... 5.1 audio (music) for instance... strips out voices in the rear speakers...
 
gar818 said:
ATi = Garbage, the R600 is the worst chipset ever, ATI/AMD even knows this when the product was alsmot not released because of the bad performance/heat/power issues, all this time they had and couldnt even compete......the only time ati has ever been ahead of nvidia was with the 9800 series, thats it.....nvidia quickly realised they made a mistake and came back ahead with the 6800's...........now if ATI doesnt make a comeback i can see them going out of the high end market..........
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1) The nVidia FX5700/5800 is widely regarded as the worst graphics card flop ever.

2) Actually the 9800's predecessor, the 9700 is what gave ATI a substantial lead over nVidia, the 9800 just continued it.

3) The X1800/1900/1950's were generally regarded as superior to nVidia's competing products.


Moving on:

I'm waiting for overclocking results on the 2900XT before I decide which way to go for my next card. Not because I'm eager to have one of these sucking down 300W in my machine, but because I think it will be a reasonable indicator of what this architecture will be capable of with acceptable power consumption after the 65nm die shrink.

If it still proves lacking then I will bite the bullet and go with an 8800 (8900?) for my next card.
 
ShadowOfMyself said:
The problem here isnt really the card itself... Its officially stated to compete with the GTS640, which it bests, and sometimes matches the GTX,

Does not best according to this review.

but somehow, HOCP now manages to make it perform even worse than the GTS320 while having better drivers... I bet if they make a re-review in 2 months it will be around 8600GTS level, right? :rolleyes:

Implying {H} is somehow fudging the numbers or just not doing it right. Please state reasons for this.

Sounds like the Geforce FX... The more people talk about them, the worse they make it look, but when you actually check the card isnt so bad, it just has specific flaws that dont help it at all
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The card may not be "that bad" but talking about it does not necessarily make it look worse.
 
If you have waited this long then just wait some more. No reason to upgrade when none of the current GPUs are clearly superior despite the evidence for Nvidia this round being the better product. If there was NO ATI people would still argue against Nvidia lol.

Come on. Ati had it's run and now it's Nvidia. As soon, as any company releases a better card I will buy it.
 
ShadowOfMyself said:
The problem here isnt really the card itself... Its officially stated to compete with the GTS640, which it bests, and sometimes matches the GTX, but somehow, HOCP now manages to make it perform even worse than the GTS320 while having better drivers... I bet if they make a re-review in 2 months it will be around 8600GTS level, right? :rolleyes:

Sounds like the Geforce FX... The more people talk about them, the worse they make it look, but when you actually check the card isnt so bad, it just has specific flaws that dont help it at all
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read both reviews and compare oblivion performance. one benchmark the WILDLY varies between sites... it went up slightly in this new review, yet STILL failed :rolleyes: that is an INCREASE not a decrease...

its not [H] fudging the numbers, its everyone else with numbers that don't matter for shit.
 
0mega said:
there are a few day to day things that vista FAILS miserably at... say... 5.1 audio (music) for instance... strips out voices in the rear speakers...
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To be accurate, that's the fault of the audio chip and/or audio card vendors, who stuck their heads in the sand until the very last moment out of years of development. It's not Vista's fault. As for gaming in Vista, I have a very subjective opinion that while it may indeed be a few frames slower, overall IQ is better in most of the games I play (I stick with Vista64 day to day, but also keep an XP drive as well, where I also install my games).
 
Pepsiennis said:
To be accurate, that's the fault of the audio chip and/or audio card vendors, who stuck their heads in the sand until the very last moment out of years of development. It's not Vista's fault. As for gaming in Vista, I have a very subjective opinion that while it may indeed be a few frames slower, overall IQ is better in most of the games I play (I stick with Vista64 day to day, but also keep an XP drive as well, where I also install my games).
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I have had NO problem with this same card in XP... everything sounds perfect. same audio player, and using every single 5.1 plugin i can find, Vista chews the voices... (Winamp)
 
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