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More…AMD's $449 ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT resides in a product no-man's-land of sorts. Though the card breaks all kinds of new ground for AMD/ATI, on today's games it's merely equal to (and in some cases slower than) cards using the 320MB version of nVidia's GeForce 8800GTS--a less-expensive chip set that nVidia launched a few months ago.
ATI Radeon HD 2900XT
Pros
High-quality video decode and encode
Ready for DirectX 10
Cons
Expensive compared to similar performers
Bottom Line
ATI's first DirectX 10 graphics card.
ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT
Radeon HD 2900XT Review, by Eric Dahl June 13, 2007
The Radeon HD 2900 XT is the flagship of a new line of ATI boards with top-to-bottom DirectX 10 support, and it's packed with impressive technology, including a 512-bit memory interface; 320 unified stream processors, which can handle any type of shader you throw at them; and high-quality video processing with full encode and decode support for high-definition video.
But the benchmark story isn't particularly compelling: Almost any member of the current generation of graphics boards will handle today's games just fine. Unless you're looking for full antialiasing and 60 frames per second on your 1900-by-1200, 23-inch LCD, you'll be fine with even a midrange ATI or nVidia graphics board. As a result, high-end graphics boards are tough to differentiate.
The Radeon HD 2900 XT lagged just a bit behind the GeForce 8800 GTS cards we've tested. When we bumped Half-Life 2 up to 1600 by 1200 resolution with antialiasing enabled, one significant difference became apparent: The Radeon achieved just 91 frames per second, compared with 116 fps for a comparably priced GeForce 8800 GTS board and 124 fps for a top-of-the-line GeForce 8800 GTX model.
Results in Battlefield 2, Quake 4, and Far Cry showed the HD 2900 XT and the 8800 GTS running neck and neck. In Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory the HD 2900 XT managed to pull ahead a bit: The HD 2900 XT ran the game at 51 fps at 1600 by 1200 resolution with antialiasing, while the GeForce 8800 GTS board managed 45 fps.
The real battleground for these new boards will take shape later this year, when the first DX10 games start to appear. That's when we'll see who has really done a better job of building a unified shader architecture that's ready for the future of 3D gaming.
Eric Dahl
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User Reviews
Average User Reviews for ATI Radeon HD 2900XT
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- Latest User Reviews 1 review
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Reviewed by: ConnorS
Duration of ownership: 7 Weeks
Strengths: -Great Bang-For-the-Buck -powerful oppurtunities
Weaknesses: -fan is very loud, no, I mean LOOOUUUD!!! -confusing to set up -only works well with some games and applications
Overall: The ATI HD 2900XT is definetly a mixed bag. A decent option for gamers and some basic graphic designers, the 2900 has a good value compared to nVIDEA's 8800 series. However, most paople will find this card more of a burden than an enlightenment. The fan can get terribly loud if you use it for too long at high settings, and if you pack two of these bad-boys into one PC, I'd reccomend some protective earwear. The 2900 is very confusing and difficult to set up, and has an at-best lukewarm performance with quite a few apllications and some games. I would not reccomend this card to mainstream users or casual PC gamers. If you are one these people, I would reccomend ATI's Crossfire 1950XT or the 2400 series.
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