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X2900XT preview

drizzt81 said:
The C't magazine has been around since 1996 and I would regard it as the computer magazine with the most consistently well-researched articles. Unfortunately, they do not have an English language version. Regardless, if the article scanned above is indeed a fake, it was been rather well done, since the layout is copied exactly from the magazine.
Click to expand...
Sine October 1983 to be exact ;)

But just for the last fake-rowdys: click

Or is it just a computer animation... LOL :D
 
I have always been a fan of ATI's IQ however after comparing those screens side by side on my monitor I actually think the Nvidia one looks better. Wow. The shed in deep freeze is more sharp and clear with the grading on the shed itself. The white box in the snow towards the centre right of the screen has the lines on the box more clearly visible on the Nvidia. I think Nvidia actually DOES have better IQ this round. :eek:
 
 
Kano said:
Look closely at the tip of the blimp in canyon flight.
The 2900XT does AA slightly better than the 8800 GTX.
Click to expand...
Agreed, In the first set of pics the boxes on the HD have more detail. The telephone wire to the left have a bit more detail to them as well on the HD. As for the second pic the pointed spear on the front of the balloon is more visible in the HD then in the G80. From what I read in that forum those pics were setup by 2 different persons. And, the G80 pics have less compression.
 
Im most likely getting one tommorrow :D, yes I know even though my username says nvidiapwnsati.... im not a fanboy so dont flame me! :p. If I get it over a 8800.... I will do 3dmark06 benchmark testing and start a new thread on it.. Still not giving up on ati!
well just remembered... wednesday instead of monday.... since wednesday is last day for finals :D.
 
Kano said:
Image comparisons between 2900XT and 8800GTX:

Deep Feeze 2900XT: http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/6213/1dfpg7.jpg
Deep Feeze 8800 GTX: http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/3573/gtx1xv2.jpg

Canyon Flight 2900XT: http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/7387/2cfgq1.jpg
Canron Flight 8800 GTX: http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/1743/gtx2br1.jpg

:D
Click to expand...

While there are slight image quality differences, I havn't seen two different-branded cards render a scene this closely in a long time. Despite outlandish custom AF and AA methods, plus differing shader architectures, these screenshots are remakably similar. To me, this says that video cards are hitting their peak in terms of image quality correction for polygon scenes, and that's certainly a good thing because now you don't have to compromise when deciding between the two brands.

It's nice to see ATI took the leap required to step-up after they let their AA stagnate at 6x MSAA for so long...it removed too much detail. Their old algoritthm would not have maintained that detailed point of the blimp.
 
Kano said:
Image comparisons between 2900XT and 8800GTX:

Deep Feeze 2900XT: http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/6213/1dfpg7.jpg
Deep Feeze 8800 GTX: http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/3573/gtx1xv2.jpg

Canyon Flight 2900XT: http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/7387/2cfgq1.jpg
Canron Flight 8800 GTX: http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/1743/gtx2br1.jpg

:D
Click to expand...

Compare the file sizes, somethings not right.

For Deep Freeze, the jpg marked for ATI is 109.97kB and the one for the nvidia card is 358.45kB.

For Canyon Flight, the jpg that is marked as ATI is 123.17kB and the nvidia one is 628.75kB.

If these jpgs were really taken by the same person, why would they use so much less compression quality for the ATI ones, like 3 to 5 times less? If they were meant to compare image quality, they would have used PNG 24 bit, something lossless. If you ask me it looks like either those shots are not meant to be compared to each other, or somebody's trying to sabotage the impressions for one of those two cards. If you know what I mean.
 
capable heart said:
Compare the file sizes, somethings not right.

For Deep Freeze, the jpg marked for ATI is 109.97kB and the one for the nvidia card is 358.45kB.

For Canyon Flight, the jpg that is marked as ATI is 123.17kB and the nvidia one is 628.75kB.

If these jpgs were really taken by the same person, why would they use so much less compression quality for the ATI ones, like 3 to 5 times less? If they were meant to compare image quality, they would have used PNG 24 bit, something lossless. If you ask me it looks like either those shots are not meant to be compared to each other, or somebody's trying to sabotage the impressions for one of those two cards. If you know what I mean.
Click to expand...

They weren't taken by the same person. The guy with the 2900XT posted screen shots then someone with an 8800 posted.
 
Hehe Was about to say that, it just came up didnt it ? The review. Funny thing is I was reading the gigabyte p35 review, daaamn lol.
 
Riptide_NVN said:
Damn vr-zone is getting hammered right now.
Click to expand...

The high points I've managed to hit is that...

1. Its slightly hotter than a 8800.
2. AF is possibly slightly worse than 8800, but on max AA seems to be slightly better on the 2900xt.
3. The 65nm tech must be NIIICE because the 2600 cards are only rated around 45w if this is correct. That means that next gen GPUs on 65nm may get back down to reasonable wattages.

Still trying to load a bit more though.
 
Neist said:
The high points I've managed to hit is that...

1. Its slightly hotter than a 8800.
2. AF is possibly slightly worse than 8800, but on max AA seems to be slightly better on the 2900xt.
3. The 65nm tech must be NIIICE because the 2600 cards are only rated around 45w if this is correct. That means that next gen GPUs on 65nm may get back down to reasonable wattages.

Still trying to load a bit more though.
Click to expand...


Download the review archived by Rapidshare (entire review viewable on local computer with pictures): http://rapidshare.com/files/31092804/r600_uploaded_by_fleetops.net.zip.html

OUCH! Reading through it now after having downloaded from the link I just posted:

Idle, you can see core at around 54C while loaded it goes to 71C without any overclocking. And this is one setup lying naked, imagine it in a case! Definitely one of the hottest cards around. The temperature-controlled fan on the card has little time in slow-spin operation, spinning up not long from start of operation, and perpetually all the time when 3D is ran. Not too much of a worry since it's not loud, but the noise is definitely audible.
Click to expand...

3D Mark 06 SM3.0 Test "Canyon Flight" was ran to record the power consumption. The whole setup was the same except for Video Cards. Setup Specs on the next page.

PowerColor HD X2900XT Idle: 245 watts Load: 365 watts
ASUS EN8800GTS 640MB 513/792MHz Idle: 240 watts Load: 300 watts
Click to expand...

Vrzone graph said:
Quake 4 ultra quality 1600x1200 16xaf:

ATI 2900XT: 98fps
eVGA SC 8800GTS 320: 109fps
Click to expand...

Vrzone graph said:
2142 battlefield 1600x1200 16xAF 4xAA:
ATI 2900XT: 32fps
eVGA SC 8800GTS 320: 70fps
Again, like what we've seen in our Lost coast tests, when Anti-Aliasing was turned on, the X2900XT faced performance issues, due to current driver implementation for sure as you can see it losing out to even the X1950XTX.
Click to expand...

VRzone review said:
At normal view screen size you can already tell the difference. Look at the gun, that's closest to your character, you can see it starkly sharper on the 8800 compared to the 2900. Notice especially the words and buttons on the gun. Words are sharper and so are the finer details on the buttons on the card below. Even the dirt track further away from the character looks sharper rendered on the 8800.

(PICTURES HERE WITH NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE)

At normal view screen size you can already tell the difference. Look at the gun, that's closest to your character, you can see it starkly sharper on the 8800 compared to the 2900. Notice especially the words and buttons on the gun. Words are sharper and so are the finer details on the buttons on the card below. Even the dirt track further away from the character looks sharper rendered on the 8800.
Click to expand...
I would post more examples, but it continues on like this basically...
 
Idle, you can see core at around 54C while loaded it goes to 71C without any overclocking. And this is one setup lying naked, imagine it in a case! Definitely one of the hottest cards around.
Click to expand...

I'm going to reserve judgement until [H] completes their review, but I think this is ridiculous. If you've got a properly ventilated case, temperatures should be lower with the case closed than open. 71C? It's like they ignored the 6800 series when they're talking about it being so hot...
 
quadnad said:
I'm going to reserve judgement until [H] completes their review, but I think this is ridiculous. If you've got a properly ventilated case, temperatures should be lower with the case closed than open. 71C? It's like they ignored the 6800 series when they're talking about it being so hot...
Click to expand...

My 7800GT and my X1800XT get hotter than that on load.
 
For the first I saw on the artic landscape picture is the GTX seems a bit dark on the shady side of the boxes. I wonder if there is any settings to adjust for that or if it is an authoring issue? *shrug* But the overhead lines and other thin objects are WAY better on the XT. On the other hand there are a couple of places where the XT is softened enough that it is close to being "smudged".

The second set of picts don't show up for me. :(
 
Neist said:
The 65nm tech must be NIIICE because the 2600 cards are only rated around 45w if this is correct. That means that next gen GPUs on 65nm may get back down to reasonable wattages.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. It just means they've cut-down the capabilities of the chip, and dropped the voltage. Nvidia did the same thing with the 8600 GTS, and it also features an ~45w envelope on 90nm (see here).

This isn't rocket science. Dynamic power = V^2*C, where V is the oprating voltage and C is the overall capacitive load of a CMOS chip. If you cut the complexity of the chip by almost a factor of three, and cut the voltage, you can easily drop power consumption by a factor of three to four. Moving to a new process has a similar benefit, because it reduced the per-gate capacitive load.

From the reviews I've seen, the new 2900 XT uses around 170w peak (65 watts more than the 8800 GTS, which uses about 105w). I have little doubt in my mind that ATI has severly ramped the voltage to get the highest frequency (and thus performance) possible. Unfortunately, with that high voltage they get ridiculous power consumption on a 65nm process...they should be BEATING Nvidia on that front, not lagging severely behind.

Now I know why AMD waited for 65nm: if they had launched R600 on 90nm, the card would have performed even more poorly (lower clock speed), and would have consumed over 200w just for the XT.
 
Dwight said:
For the first I saw on the artic landscape picture is the GTX seems a bit dark on the shady side of the boxes. I wonder if there is any settings to adjust for that or if it is an authoring issue? *shrug* But the overhead lines and other thin objects are WAY better on the XT. On the other hand there are a couple of places where the XT is softened enough that it is close to being "smudged".

The second set of picts don't show up for me. :(
Click to expand...

I've uploaded them where you can swap between the pics easily, to make comparisons:

Canyon Flight:
http://users.gaelic.ie/handspun/daniel/xt.htm

Deep Freeze:
http://users.gaelic.ie/handspun/daniel/xt2.htm
 
Sir Random said:
I've uploaded them where you can swap between the pics easily, to make comparisons:

Canyon Flight:
http://users.gaelic.ie/handspun/daniel/xt.htm

Deep Freeze:
http://users.gaelic.ie/handspun/daniel/xt2.htm
Click to expand...

Nice work!
I think that the Canyon Flight is as-close-as-makes-no-difference, but in Deep Freeze you can see some rougher edges on the XT's building on the lower right of the shot. My biggest problem right now is that ATi apparently released a new driver update very recently which increased performance something like 11-42% (It's in the VR-Zone article towards the end), but I'm not sure who is testing with what drivers and whether that will paint a skewed picture. I wonder if IQ changed at all as well with those new drivers..or whether there is more performance to come from future revisions.
 
Deep Freeze
The telephone wires (the one to the left) are sharper and fuller on the HD. On the GTX there are gaps in the wire and is blurry. There is another telephone wire far left, middle of the pic that also shows sharper fuller lines on the HD. On the GTX there is pixelated gaps.
The roof top edges on the lower right side of the photo is sharper on the HD. The GTX is blurry.


Cayon Flight
The pole on the front of the balloon is more visible in the HD then in GTX. It sticks out a pit further and is obvious to see. Other then that, both photos are the same.

From looking at these pics, it's obvious that HD has better IQ here.
 
quadnad said:
...but in Deep Freeze you can see some rougher edges on the XT's building on the lower right of the shot.
Click to expand...
Oh, on the corrugation of the roof? Yeah, it looks smoother but more also flatter and sort of smudgy, like with the XT on the right-side edge of the mid-field building which is smoother there than the GTX but also has a bit flatter feeling. That was the smudginess I was talking about but I incorrectly identified all of it to the XT (I was trying to look at the pics as "brand-blind" as possible and got mixed up there, oops :rolleyes: ). Hrm.
My biggest problem right now is that ATi apparently released a new driver update very recently which increased performance something like 11-42% (It's in the VR-Zone article towards the end), but I'm not sure who is testing with what drivers and whether that will paint a skewed picture. I wonder if IQ changed at all as well with those new drivers..or whether there is more performance to come from future revisions.
Click to expand...
I forsee that being a big issue if reviews aren't really clear about what version of the driver they are using given the huge performance differences between them as well as currently unknown IQ differences.
 
So, Brent.....is this review going to drop at 12:00am GMT or do we have to wait it out until 6:00am CDT? Might as well post it earlier since the servers are going to get hammered today! And I've got nothing better to do tonight than stay up awaiting official reviews :)
 
SpoogeMonkey said:
So, Brent.....is this review going to drop at 12:00am GMT or do we have to wait it out until 6:00am CDT? Might as well post it earlier since the servers are going to get hammered today! And I've got nothing better to do tonight than stay up awaiting official reviews :)
Click to expand...

hah, I'm sure he's sitting in front of his computer furiously bashing away at his keyboard to finish up the review as I type this. I think he mentioned yesterday that he was pulling an all-nighter last night.
 
Taht would probably make me so mad I'd release the review with the beta drivers. Poor Brent. :(
 
Eastcoasthandle said:
Deep Freeze
The telephone wires (the one to the left) are sharper and fuller on the HD. On the GTX there are gaps in the wire and is blurry. There is another telephone wire far left, middle of the pic that also shows sharper fuller lines on the HD. On the GTX there is pixelated gaps.
The roof top edges on the lower right side of the photo is sharper on the HD. The GTX is blurry.


Cayon Flight
The pole on the front of the balloon is more visible in the HD then in GTX. It sticks out a pit further and is obvious to see. Other then that, both photos are the same.

From looking at these pics, it's obvious that HD has better IQ here.
Click to expand...
Yep, so I guess my eyes weren't deceiving me after all. What you described is exactly what I noticed also. It's not a huge difference, but it is noticeable on close inspection.
 
One thing that just occured to me: am I the only one who reads about this new tessellation feature, and thinks "TruForm II"?

I can only hope it has a longer liftime than TruForm, only the 8500 had hardware support for that.
 
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