Upgrade to HD2900XT from X1950XT?

[Mandinga]

I enjoy my X1950XT card in my E6400 system. I wonder if an upgrade to the
HD2900XT makes sense. I'll stick to the XP SP2 for quite some time, so I'm
not looking for DX10 enhancements. Instead, I'd like to smoothly play games
in a high res (e.g., 1680x1050 or higher).

 

[First of One]

The 2900XT is speculated to have a broken hardware AA resolver that was
never fixed, and uses shaders to handle AA. Consequently, in present-day
games the card takes an unusually large performance hit with AA enabled.

Example can be seen here:
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2988&p=20

In Oblivion at 1920x1200 no AA, the 2900XT is 78% faster than the X1950XTX.
With 4x AA the 2900XT is only 17% faster than the X1950XTX.

So the decision will depend on your gaming habits and the max resolution of
your monitor. If you have a medium sized monitor that tops out at 1680x1050
and prefer AA, don't get the 2900XT.

 

[Mandinga]

The 2900XT is speculated to have a broken hardware AA resolver that was
never fixed, and uses shaders to handle AA. Consequently, in present-day
games the card takes an unusually large performance hit with AA enabled.

Example can be seen here:
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2988&p=20

In Oblivion at 1920x1200 no AA, the 2900XT is 78% faster than the
X1950XTX. With 4x AA the 2900XT is only 17% faster than the X1950XTX.

So the decision will depend on your gaming habits and the max resolution
of your monitor. If you have a medium sized monitor that tops out at
1680x1050 and prefer AA, don't get the 2900XT.

Thanks for the cool info! I'd love to run games at 1920x1200 (I have a
wonderful Sony P234b 23" LCD) but don't really care about AA. To me, the
graphic quality difference between AA & no-AA is negligeable once the res
goes above 1440. The 8800GTS seems like a better choice than the 2900XT, but
I prefer the graphic quality of Radeon.

 

[Carl]

I have an HD2900XT replacing a pair of X1900XT cards. No complaints here, I
usually play Oblivion, and have HDR on instead of AA, which I agree makes
negligible difference. Noise is my big issue, get an aftermarket cooler on
it and enjoy. I also agree about the graphical differences, icons seem to
be, neater, for want of a better description. I am waiting for Cat 7.8 to
arrive as they apparently enable the Crossfire, which is busted so far.

 

[Mandinga]

I have an HD2900XT replacing a pair of X1900XT cards. No complaints here, I
usually play Oblivion, and have HDR on instead of AA, which I agree makes
negligible difference. Noise is my big issue, get an aftermarket cooler on
it and enjoy.

This zero db cooler is coming soon. Other versions received glowing reviews.
This one looks good, too.

http://www.thermalright.com/a_page/main_product_hr03_r600.htm

I can sell my XT at a reasonable price, so the upgrade will cost me slightly
more than $200. Not too bad at all. I checked out other benchmarks and the
2900XT is blazingly fast without AA, which I'm not going to enable anyways.

 

[Guest]

I would say to hold off for now, rumors are that here will be something like
an X2900 Pro coming out soon.

 

[First of One]

That is not a zero-dB cooler. As with many high-end Thermalright
coolers, you supply your own 80- or 92-mm fan. Choose a decent fan and it
will be quiet; just make sure your mobo's northbridge clears it.

 

[First of One]

Soooo, it'll be like a 2900XT with 1/4 the stream processors disabled. Like
we really need an even slower card.

 

[Ken Maltby]

Soooo, it'll be like a 2900XT with 1/4 the stream processors disabled.
Like we really need an even slower card.

--

What I would like to see is a card with the gaming power
of the HD2900XT (R600) and the video accelerations of the
HD 2600 (R630). I guess I can understand that ATI/AMD
went with the old (X1000 series) video accelerations for the
first chip out the door, but if they make a new one in the
HD2900 series it should have the latest features.

Luck;
Ken

 

[Carl]

I just wish they would make a card that is less noisy! All these silent
solutions do not seem to take into account Crossfire setups where there is
even less space available. In my machine I have a PhysX card, an X-Fi, and a
PCIx1 tv card. I have no room for big ignorant heatsinks! But my case is
very broad, it would easily accommodate an offset 92mm fan on the HD2900
heatsink, similar to the new Nvidia cards. Bound to be better and quieter!
Still, I reckon that I will have to watercool the whole lot once the second
2900 is able to be used......bah!

 

[Mandinga]

I just wish they would make a card that is less noisy! All these silent
solutions do not seem to take into account Crossfire setups where there is
even less space available. In my machine I have a PhysX card, an X-Fi, and
a PCIx1 tv card. I have no room for big ignorant heatsinks! But my case is
very broad, it would easily accommodate an offset 92mm fan on the HD2900
heatsink, similar to the new Nvidia cards. Bound to be better and quieter!
Still, I reckon that I will have to watercool the whole lot once the second
2900 is able to be used......bah!

I understand your frustration. I built a quiet PC last year (a Zalman CPU
cooler, 3 x 120mm SilenX case fans, and a Zalman VGA cooler for my X1950XT).
I don't hear noise unless I glue my ear to the Antec P180b case. But, the
Zalman VGA cooler doesn't do a good job cooling the XT, so I added a PCI
slot cooler right below it. The GPU temp dropped by 10C. It was very noisy,
so I replaced the 80mm fan with an Enermax fan and it's now ultra quiet.

I actually bought a Koolance water cool system and returned it because its
radiator fans were noisier than all the fans in my PC combined! And I wasn't
comfortable with water running inside my PC. Fortunately, I have room for
the huge Thermalright heatsink for the R600.