ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT: Calling a Spade a Spade
by Derek Wilson on May 14, 2007 12:04 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The AMD HD 2000 Series Lineup
The announcement today includes a top-to-bottom lineup of DX10 class hardware including four mobile parts (with one additional DX9 mobile part sharing the HD 2000 series naming) and five desktop parts. While all of this hardware is being made public, we've only got one piece of hardware to bring to the table today: the R600 based Radeon HD 2900 XT.
Performance on all other R6xx parts won't be available until "late June", but we can still talk about what these parts will be when they finally make it to market. On the desktop, in addition to the HD 2900 XT, we will see the Radeon HD 2400 Pro and XT in the "value" segment, with the HD 2600 Pro and XT providing good mainstream-to-midrange gaming performance.
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT
ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT
ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro
There is currently no add-in retail hardware planned that tops the HD 2900 XT, but we are hearing rumors that faster parts may be available through OEMs only. This is unconfirmed at present, so take it with a grain of salt. Let's take a look at a break down of what we do know we'll be getting:
| AMD R6xx Hardware | ||||||||
| SPs | RBEs | Core Clock | TMUs | DDR Rate | Bus Width | Memory Size | Price | |
| HD 2900 XT | 320 | 16 | 740MHz | 16 | 825MHz | 512bit | 512MB | $399 |
| HD 2600 | 120 | 4 | 600 - 800MHz | 8 | 400 - 1100MHz | 128bit | 256MB | $99 - $199 |
| HD 2400 | 40 | 4 | 525 - 700MHz | 4 | 400 - 800MHz | 64bit | 128MB / 256MB | <$99 |
It's harder to pin down all the specs of the mobile parts, as all the clock speeds (and sometimes bus width) can change depending on the TDP envelope a notebook maker is working with. While we aren't certain, our best guess is that mobile parts named similarly to desktop parts will have the same internal configuration of SPs, texture units, and render back ends. The exception here is the Mobility Radeon HD 2300, which is a DX9 part based on R5xx hardware.
While 2400 and 2600 standard and XT versions will exist in the mobile space, there are currently no plans for a high end mobile part. This is very likely due to the high power draw and low performance per watt we see with AMD's 80nm R600. We don't expect to see a higher performance mobile part until AMD can get the power consumption of its higher end hardware down (likely with a process shrink).
Just for comparison, let's take a look at what NVIDIA is currently offering as well. Here's a table of all the G8x based parts on the market.
| NVIDIA G8x Hardware | ||||||||
| SPs | ROPs | Core Clock | Shader Clock | DDR Rate | Bus Width | Memory Size | Price | |
| 8800 Ultra | 128 | 24 | 612MHz | 1.5GHz | 2.16GHz | 384bit | 768MB | $830+ |
| 8800 GTX | 128 | 24 | 576MHz | 1.35GHz | 1.8GHz | 384bit | 768MB | $600 - $650 |
| 8800 GTS | 96 | 20 | 513MHz | 1.19GHz | 1.6GHz | 320bit | 640MB | $400 - $450 |
| 8800 GTS 320MB | 96 | 20 | 513MHz | 1.19GHz | 1.6GHz | 320bit | 320MB | $300 - $350 |
| 8600 GTS | 32 | 8 | 675MHz | 1.45GHz | 2GHz | 128bit | 256MB | $200 - $230 |
| 8600 GT | 32 | 8 | 540MHz | 1.19GHz | 1.4GHz | 128bit | 256MB | $150 - $160 |
| 8500 GT | 16 | 4 | 450MHz | 900MHz | 800MHz | 128bit | 256MB / 512MB | $89 - $129 |
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dragonsqrrl - Thursday, August 25, 2011 - link
You forgot c).-if you're an ATI fanboy
vijay333 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=1...">http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=1..."the expression to call a spade a spade is thousands of years old and etymologically has nothing whatsoever to do with any racial sentiment."
strikeback03 - Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - link
What about in Euchre, where a spade can be a club (and vice versa)?johnsonx - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
Just wait until AT refers to AMD's marketing budget as 'niggardly'...bldckstark - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
What do shovels have to do with race?Stan11003 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
My big hope out all of this that the ATI part forces the Nvidia parts lower so I can use my upgrade option from EVGA to get a nice 8800 GTX instead of my 8800 GTS ACS3 320. However with a quad core and a decent 2GB I have no gaming issues at all. I play at 1600x1200(when that become a low rez?) and everything is butter smooth. Without newer titles all this hardware is a waist anyways.Gul Westfale - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
the article says that the part is not a failure, but i disagree. i switched from a radeon 1950pro to an nvidia geforce 8800GTS 320MB about a mont ago, and i paid only $350US for it. now i see that it still outperforms the new 2900...one of my friends wanted to wait to buy a new card, he said he hoped that the ATI part was going to be faster. now he says he will just buy the 8800GTS 320, since ATI have failed.
if they can bring out a part that competes well with the 8800GTS and price it similarly or lower then it would be worth buying, but until then i will stick with nvidia. better performance, better price, and better drivers... why would anyone buy the ATI card now?
ncage - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
My conclusion is to wait. All of the recent GPU do great with dx9...the question is how will they do with dx10? I think its best to wait for dx10 titles to come out. I think crysis would be a PERFECT test.wingless - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
I agree with you. Crysis is going to be the benchmark for these DX10 cards. Its hard to tell both Nvidia and AMD's DX10 performance with these current, first generation DX10 titles (most of which have a DX9 version) because they don't fully take advantage of all the power on both the G80 or R600 yet. Its true that Crysis will have a DX9 version as well but the developer stated there are some big differences in code. I'm an Nvidia fanboy but I'm disappointed with the Pure Video and HDMI support on the 8800 series cards. ATI got this worked out with their great AVIVO and their nice HDMI implementation but for now Nvidia is still the performance champ with "simpler" hardware. The G80 and R600 continue the traditions of their manufacturers. Nvidia has always been about raw power and all out speed with few bells and whistles. ATI is all about refinement, bells and whistles, innovations, and unproven new methods which may make or break them.All I really want to wait for is to see how developers embrace CUDA or ATI's setup for PHYSICS PROCESSING! Both companies seem to have well thought out methods to do physics and I cant wait to see that showdown. AGEIA and HAVOK need to hop on-board and get some software support for all this good hardware potential they have to play with. Physics is the next big gimmick and you know how much we all love gimmicks (just like good 'ole 3D acceleration 10 years ago).
poohbear - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
they dont make a profit from high end parts that's why they're not bothering w/ it? that's AMD's story? so why bother having an FX line w/ their cpus?