HD 2900XT Sapphire from ZZF (As well)

[Rattle]

I'd go for the 2900xt over the gts myself, I've had both and the 2900xt is more of a gtx competitor for much less $$

maybe in benches not in games

games=closer to gts 640 maybe even behind

benches=closer to gtx, becuase of the so called crap drivers that get good 3dmarks but have so called issues in games.

Still I wouldnt mind playing with one, but we all know whats going on.

 

[deathman20]

Well this weekend I got a chance to play some gaming and oh so nice. Played GRAW Co-Op the last day and a half. So sweet with the card, everything cranked AA with soft-edges all that jazz at 1920x1200 45 was more of a contant FPS dipped maybe 35FPS and as high as 50-55FPS semi constant in certain area's.

This is better than my X1900XT same res pulling 30FPS constant with dips into the teens if big explosions where happening at 4x AF and no AA.

As well card worked flawless at 875/1000 the whole time, and reached a whopping 43.375C for a max

 

[omniskillz]

maybe in benches not in games

games=closer to gts 640 maybe even behind

benches=closer to gtx, becuase of the so called crap drivers that get good 3dmarks but have so called issues in games.

Still I wouldnt mind playing with one, but we all know whats going on.

can u elaborate and whats going on?

 

[deathman20]

can u elaborate and whats going on?

Simple... The drivers aren't optimized for games at all. It might preform decently but doubt its anywhere near its intended capacity.

 

[toddm27]

maybe in benches not in games

games=closer to gts 640 maybe even behind

benches=closer to gtx, becuase of the so called crap drivers that get good 3dmarks but have so called issues in games.

Still I wouldnt mind playing with one, but we all know whats going on.

well I still havn't had much time to play any games, to busy changing settings and having a good old fun bench , just installed vista on it last night so games are soon to come as it looks like my keeper mb is here

 

[Rattle]

can u elaborate and whats going on?

the issues in the drivers are blamed on imaturity, but how does a driver perform so well in 3dmarks and then they claim it has issues with AA in games and so forth.

its called driver optmization.. look now and keep track of the results. check again in a couple months.

they did the same thing with the x1900's which I used and loved for 11 months from launch day till novemeber 8th when the 8800gtx hit

 

[Rattle]

well I still havn't had much time to play any games, to busy changing settings and having a good old fun bench , just installed vista on it last night so games are soon to come as it looks like my keeper mb is here

your the only guy i know that changes hardware more than me...

 

[toddm27]

can u elaborate and whats going on?

he's saying ati optimized for benches to make it score better so they could beat out the competition, only time will tell how games will unfold with future drivers

 

[Jmonty]

any of you guys running the 2900 with an AMD X2? would it be a waste for me to get one with my x2 4400 cpu?

 

[omniskillz]

he's saying ati optimized for benches to make it score better so they could beat out the competition, only time will tell how games will unfold with future drivers

so 8800 series is solid/rock

2900 is chance/luck

 

[toddm27]

so 8800 series is solid/rock

2900 is chance/luck

it's up to you, drivers may or may not improve gaming, puting it more in line with the 640mb gts if not, but if you look at the 8800 drivers when they first came out, it was the same issues, so time will tell

 

[deathman20]

so 8800 series is solid/rock

2900 is chance/luck

Basically yes.

2900 has the chance of being a decent competitor right between nVidia's 2 lines. Maybe out preforming the GTX in some cases. Overall it should preform better than the GTS but as said time will only tell.

 

[dudleycpa]

so 8800 series is solid/rock

2900 is chance/luck

A new set of drivers is suppose to be out of the end of the month. That should give everyone a better idea of where the 2900XT is going (if your still a doubting Thomas).

 

[omniskillz]

any of you guys running the 2900 with an AMD X2? would it be a waste for me to get one with my x2 4400 cpu?

viperjohn says it will be a bottleneck. i have a smiliar cpu to u, opteron 165 @ 2.6ghz currently.

but then i read in some other forums how ppl ran 8800gtx fine with my setup.

so im still contemplating which way to go. ati or nvidia. good luck in ur quest!

 

[Jmonty]

viperjohn says it will be a bottleneck. i have a smiliar cpu to u, opteron 165 @ 2.6ghz currently.

but then i read in some other forums how ppl ran 8800gtx fine with my setup.

so im still contemplating which way to go. ati or nvidia. good luck in ur quest!

thanks man. i just don't want to be one of those fools with more money to waste than knowledge. (not that i'm loaded or anything)

 

[Jmonty]

i'd really like to see what the differences in benchmarks are with a top of the line amd and intel cpu, while running the latest gpus.

 

[Hazaro]

Wait, if you upgrade to a 8800 in that rig and say were getting 50fps in your game. If you upgraded to a newer processor, you'd be hitting 100fps. Is this because of a bottleneck, or the CPU boosting performance? Or both... I'm still trying to figure out what the CPU bottleneck is.

 

[omniskillz]

i'd really like to see what the differences in benchmarks are with a top of the line amd and intel cpu, while running the latest gpus.

i think if u searched futuremark u could probably find out. guys like tod or viperjohn might know.

so im reading the diamond 2900xt packaging sucks on newegg.
Cons: Horrible packaging.All items shown are not there.I wanted the molex to 8 pin pci-e plug.
and these companies dont like to state their warranty? im guessing 1yr atleast?

so right now im stuck on 3 choices.

get the evga 8800gtx from buy.com for 481.
get the asus 2900xt stalker game/black box for 409 (assuming 1yr warranty)
or
get the sapphire from zipzoomfly for 419 (2yr warranty)

on the bottle neck, i read that if ur as low res u notice it more but higher res u go, u dont get a bottleneck.

im running 1920x1080 on my westinghouse37 monitor so im guess i should be ok

 

[deathman20]

No ones going to have a 8-pin plug in there packages so don't even consider that a Con.

 

[toddm27]

they definatly would be cpu limited, as far as bench wise, difference of gtx's on you're setup are around the high 9k mark from what I've seen in the forums, havn't seen any 2900's benched on amd though