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Another decent HD 2900XT 1gb review...

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ECH said:
Back peddling? As I stated before, no one can make any conclusive opinions with that review unless their is more information per game (in particular different resolutions). I've proven my point. There is no need to discuss pricing now. As I said before, the consumer is simply paying more for memory. There is no other arch difference between the 512meg vs 1 Gig version. But in any case, the lowest price GTX found at newegg:
here

The lowest priced HD 2900XT 1 Gig found:
here

This leaves a considerable difference making the HD2900 XT 1 Gig still cheaper. And, I didn't even bother with Ultra's prices, LOL. Which also means that the 1 Gig is not priced to compete with the GTX. Therefore, what you posted makes no sense. The HD 2900 XT (1 gig or not) is a medium range card that on occasions competes with the higher priced GTX at higher resolutions. You making a bigger deal out of this then should be. On another note, will ATI release a R650 (some think it's a R680) in Q3 making this a X1800xt > X1900xtx all over again? Hard to say, all I can say is stay tuned, LOL!

If you see back peddling in anything I said you are dreaming and you just made my point for me thank
you. While NewEgg certainly doesn't have the lowest prices they are representative and it looks like the
1Gb 2900 Orices have dropped about $30 (that is what poor sales tend to do to prices) so lets see here.

Right now in stock at NewEgg and after any rebates offered the lowest prices are as follows:

8800GTS 640Mb = $350
2900XT 1GB = $490
8800GTX = $510
8800Untra = 580 (was $560 two weeks ago)

With a $140 higher price the 1Gb 2900 certainly isn't priced to compete with a 640Mb 8800GTS even
though performance wise that is where the card falls in line.

At a whopping $20 less than a much better in games with AA 8800GTX that certainly is where the 2900
1GB card is competing price wise.

With a $90 higher price the flat superior 8800 Ultra is still competing better in price with the 2900 1Gb
than a 2900 1Gb is competing with the $140 less 8800GTS 640Mb to which the 2900XT is comparable
to in gaming performance with AA dialed in.

You are trying to flog a dead horse here ECH. The 29001Gb is no bargain and doesn't have the gaming
performance worthy of it's price tag. The whole point of getting a 1Gb card is so you can run higher
resolutions and higher AA dialed in and keep everything in local on-card memory (versus swapping/using
performance killing system memory) and dialing up the AA just clobbers the performance of a 2900 of
any flavor.

wise. The 2900's DX10 performance is also way sub par. The 2900's IQ is also worse than any 8800 card.
NV anything having better in IQ than an ATI card was a big flip/flop that occured with a 2900's release. ATI
has always cleaned NV's clock in IQ until the 2900's popped out of the oven.

BTW there will be no R650 or R680 refresh card. ATI killed them and to cut it's loses on the R600 R&D
long ago when the 65nm die shrink went down in major flames (ATI knew when to quit flogging a dead
horse lol). The next ATI card out will be using the R700.

The 2900XT 512Mb gives decent value for you $ if you get it under $400. The 2900XT 1Gb just gets you
a higher price period. If you are thinking about getting a 2900XT 1Gb card then pop an extra $20 out of
your wallet to get 8800GTX instead then dial up the AA and enjoy. Throw in a little stock OC and enjoy
it even more.

Enough said lol.

Viper
 
It also stinks that you cant OC the 2900's at all unless you have the 8 pin power connector. I have been weighing the pro's and con's since I could do Crossfire with this board but not SLI. I just think right now if I was to go ATi/AMD I would go with a x1900XT or possibly 2 of them used for the same money.
 
I simply posted this thread originally just as another review on a card that I didn't know that much about. I do have to agree with Viper on this one because the 1gb version is simply not living up to it's pricetag and you might as well get a 2900XT 512mb card if you like ATI and if not then go with an 8800. Also another thing to consider, will you actually need more than 512mb of video memory for current games? And I know the counter argument for that is: "there are some really nice games coming out in the near future." The reality is that when those games do finnaly hit the market, we will have the 9800 series and the R700 most likely. So the current generation cards will not be able to compete with the next generation anyways. This is just an on-going cycle. I do not regret getting my 2900 and love it thus far even just being at stock settings for the moment. My goal is usually to get about 1 year of heavy use out of a video card. If I can do that, then I am happy. :beer:
 
Nandro said:
It also stinks that you cant OC the 2900's at all unless you have the 8 pin power connector. I have been weighing the pro's and con's since I could do Crossfire with this board but not SLI. I just think right now if I was to go ATi/AMD I would go with a x1900XT or possibly 2 of them used for the same money.

Yeah, that's my current problem as well and I will need to upgrade my PSU first.
 
So that requirement for me just lead me to decide on the 8800gts 640 or the GTX. I wish I could justify the 2900, but everything points to the 8800 being the superior card, value/IQ/ and oc ability wise. I briefly had a 320, and the dissapointment was that some games want 512M vid mem to do ultra settings, so it went back and now I am waiting on some funds for a 640 or gtx.
 
Nandro said:
It also stinks that you cant OC the 2900's at all unless you have the 8 pin power connector. I have been weighing the pro's and con's since I could do Crossfire with this board but not SLI. I just think right now if I was to go ATi/AMD I would go with a x1900XT or possibly 2 of them used for the same money.

Sure you can you just can't use the CCC to do it. Just use RivaTuna 2.02 or ATItool (kinda flakey).

I haven't ever seen the the OC page in the CCC come up even using an 8 pin connector with a 512Mb 2900
card. Only with the 2900 1Gb OEM cards have I seen OC capability in the CCC.

Right now you can't OC a 2900 CrossFire with anything...or at least you weren't able to. I haven't checked
in with W1zzard for a while and maybe he has come up with something.

Viper
 
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Nandro said:
So that requirement for me just lead me to decide on the 8800gts 640 or the GTX. I wish I could justify the 2900, but everything points to the 8800 being the superior card, value/IQ/ and oc ability wise. I briefly had a 320, and the dissapointment was that some games want 512M vid mem to do ultra settings, so it went back and now I am waiting on some funds for a 640 or gtx.

Th 320Mb GTS has really had it's share of quirks and game issues the 640Mb versions do not have for
some reason lol. NV is aware of it/them and the driver team is trying to get the bugs out of the 320Mb
but some just do not want to go away lol.

If you are going to game at or over 1600x1200 or the widescreen equivalent with lots of AA and high
quality game textures you want at least 512Mb of GFX card memory anyway.

Viper
 
ViperJohn said:
Sure you can you just can't use the CCC to do it. Just use RivaTuna 2.02 or ATItool (kinda flakey).

I haven't ever seen the the OC page in the CCC come up even using an 8 pin connector with a 512Mb 2900
card. Only with the 2900 1Gb OEM cards have I seen OC capability in the CCC.

Right now you can't OC a 2900 CrossFire with anything...or at least you weren't able to. I haven't checked
in with W1zzard for a while and maybe he has come up with something.

Viper

CCC works for me with the 8-Pin but I just use that ATIGPU tool to OC my card currently and it works fine since I only do it on certain games.
 
deathman20 said:
CCC works for me with the 8-Pin but I just use that ATIGPU tool to OC my card currently and it works fine since I only do it on certain games.

Some people get the page and other don't with a 512mb version with an 8 pin. I have no idea why I don't
but with 3 different 512Mb cards in two different WinXP installs I still have not seen it. It was there with a
1GB OEM version card though.

It doesn't really matter though since there are other OC tools and the max OC cap in the CCC is to low to
be useful anyway unless you edit the bios to raise the caps.

Viper
 
:confused: I just attempted to install the Cat 7.8 beta and after hanging up multiple times in the initial detection mode, I gave up. So no dice so far.
 
Disregard last post. I was able to install 7.8 beta finnaly after about 4 tries and heavy registry cleaning. :p It did increase my 3Dmark06 score slightly at 3.36ghz CPU speed however got 11015 with a little higher CPU OC at 3.43ghz. So I finnaly cracked the 11000 barrier. Not to bad for a stock card and stock cooler with an older PSU.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=2684731
 
Not bad. I dont have my 8800GTS 320 anymore, but I have my scores written down. With my CPU at 3.4ghz and the 8800 320 clocked at 665/1020 I got 11452 in 3d06. If you clocked that up a bit youd best that score most likely. Can you OC it without the 8 pin connector or do you have a PSU that has such a connection?
 
Nandro said:
Not bad. I dont have my 8800GTS 320 anymore, but I have my scores written down. With my CPU at 3.4ghz and the 8800 320 clocked at 665/1020 I got 11452 in 3d06. If you clocked that up a bit youd best that score most likely. Can you OC it without the 8 pin connector or do you have a PSU that has such a connection?

Yup just need 2x 6-Pin connectors thats all. The 8-Pin is to start a new standard and really the 2 extra pins are well 1 is an extra ground and the other is special in some way but its not used like that and acts like another ground.
 
deathman20 said:
Yup just need 2x 6-Pin connectors thats all. The 8-Pin is to start a new standard and really the 2 extra pins are well 1 is an extra ground and the other is special in some way but its not used like that and acts like another ground.

The 8 pin give you an additional ground return wire and the other is just signal to tell the card an
8 pin is plugged in lol.

Viper
 
with that small overclock it did some what better. any other reviews out that they did some what heavily overclocking with performance numbers? im curious where the XTX performance should have been.
 
The overclocking options do not even show up in CCC for me, and I assume thats because I don't have the 8 pin connector. I will need a better PSU to push this card. I want to ultimately do a permenent bios flash, but that will have to wait until I have it under water and with an OCZ 700W PSU, which is what I am considering getting soon.
 
metloaf said:
The overclocking options do not even show up in CCC for me, and I assume thats because I don't have the 8 pin connector. I will need a better PSU to push this card. I want to ultimately do a permenent bios flash, but that will have to wait until I have it under water and with an OCZ 700W PSU, which is what I am considering getting soon.

Just use RivaTuner 2.02 to OC the card. Your OCZ 520 SLI probably has the stones to power a
single stock OC'ed 2900 and the rest of your rig (barely).

There is no point in flashing the bios with anything other than it came with stock.

Viper
 
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