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Radeon HD 2900 XT In Trouble […]
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Radeon HD 2900 XT In Trouble

ATI definitely did not pull off another Radeon 9700 Pro. The Radeon 9700 Pro was a phenomenal card for the time. It introduced a 256-bit bus for the first time and excelled in DirectX 9 shader performance. The Radeon 9700 Pro positively shocked gamers and had a very long life span. Everyone wanted a generational jump such as that with the R600. The ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT however is more akin to NVIDIA’s GeForce FX 5800. It does not seem like this will have a very long life span in comparison. NVIDIA quickly answered the GeForce FX 5800 by introducing the GeForce FX 5900 (NV35). ATI really needs to do something similar in this situation, or they may lose some loyal fans in the enthusiast community and you can bet they are going to continue to lose sales to NVIDIA’s 8000 series products.

Here is what it boils down to. If the Radeon HD 2900 XT performed exactly on par with the GeForce 8800 GTS in every game, it would still be a loser because it draws nearly 100 more watts of power, meaning it is very inefficient. The facts are though that it doesn’t even match the 8800 GTS currently. In every game it slides in underperforming compared to the GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB, and it does it while drawing a lot more power, as much power or more as an 8800 GTX. Not only that, but a GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB based video card can now be had for up to $70 cheaper than the Radeon HD 2900 XT. I don’t know about you, but a video card that is cheaper, runs a lot faster and draws less energy just seems like the better value to me.

This doesn’t even bring into the equation the GeForce 8800 GTX which outclasses the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT on every front. Yes, it costs about $130 more, but that $130 buys you a lot more performance in games. It is sad that ATI does not have a GPU to compete with the GeForce 8800 GTX. At this point NVIDIA has, dare I say it, a monopoly over the high-end of computer gaming video card market. If you want the best gaming performance, it is still the GeForce 8800 GTX. The GTX has no competition.

No High–End Video Card?

Is ATI going to completely drop out of the high-end segment? If you ask anyone at ATI they will tell you that they actually haven’t because you can CrossFire two of these video cards to achieve higher performance. But do you really want two of these high wattage hot running video cards in your system? There are gamers that actually prefer just using one video card and have not bought into the dual GPU solutions. We asked ATI why there is no higher-end version and they pretty much told us that no one would buy it when you take the CrossFire into consideration. Well, we know that is simply false because there are people that buy $499 and $599 single video cards, case in point the GeForce 8800 GTX. ATI’s answers were a painful copout to not being able to get the job done and it was obvious.

I have a strong suspicion that the R700 will be able to compete in the high-end. The R600’s main problem is that the GPU is inefficient and draws so much power that they have simply hit a wall as to how fast they can make the Radeon HD 2900 XT. There is simply no way they can make it faster with the current ASIC design. There will be a 1 GB version in the future utilizing GDDR4, but from what we hear it will most likely not bring much of a core or memory clock speed increase, it will simply be a 1 GB version of the HD 2900 XT. GDDR4 should help some, with the power utilization, but even with that it appears the 2900 XT is simply running into a big brick wall.

It is sad to see less competition in the high-end. We may be seeing the first signs that this is a bad thing for consumers with the GeForce 8800 Ultra that was launched a few weeks ago. That video card only received a modest overclock from the GTX but incurred an incredibly high price penalty. A penalty that was so ridiculous it rendered the video card pointless. We hope this is not a trend starting; we’d hate to see overpriced video cards becoming the norm.

The 8800GTS 640mb is a good buy. I bought one last week and have been playing around with it all weekend, playing games at 1920x1200. Simply amazing.