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Summary

The following is a summary of the more detailed analysis of the AMD ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT graphics card. For all the in-depth analysis and testing you'd expect from us, be sure to click this link to get all the details!

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The R600 architecture is a major step beyond the R580 architecture we saw in ATI's X1900 XT graphics cards and lineup that jumps down the road of unified shaders, a route required by Microsoft's Direct X 10 and first implemented in the G80 architecture from NVIDIA.  AMD claims that the new HD 2000 series of graphics cards will take the best features of the X1000 series (like dynamic branching and stream computing) and combine them with advantages from the Xbox 360's Xenos GPU (such as unified shaders and stream out) and add new technology (like DX10 support, a superscalar shader processor and updated dispatch processor) to make a new desktop product. 

AMD brought a few new features to their GPU core this time around includig a new AA method and HDMI support.  What has great potential for AMD's CFAA is that these are programmable and thus future driver revisions can bring new AA methods as they are developed.  Another that AMD is bringing to us with the launch is an adaptive edge detection filter that can perform edge detection on the image and use more samples along that edge's direction in an attempt to produce a better quality image.

AMD decided to solve that problem by integrating an audio controller directly into the GPU to act as the pass through for digital audio output over HDMI.  Their solution is HDCP compliant as well as Vista compliant as it supplies an encrypted path for the audio data across the entire pathway. 

This new audio controller installs a new driver and works with both Windows XP and Windows Vista with support for AC3 (5.1) compressed audio streams like Dolby Digital and DTS; just don't expect support for the NEW codecs like TrueHD, etc. 

Here is the HDMI adaptor that comes with all the supporting HD 2000 series cards; looks simple enough.  You might wonder though where the audio comes into play??  It actually is sent over the DVI port and simply pin-out-converted to HDMI via this included adaptor.  I was told that you'll still be able to hit the highest resolutions the graphics card supports in video output when audio data is also being sent though with current HDTVs maxed at 1920x1080, that shouldn't be a problem for a LONG time. 

Let's take a quick look at the sample AMD Radeon HD 2900 XT that we used in our testing.

Despite rumors to the contrary, the board length is reasonable and just a half inch or so longer than NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 GTS.

Here's a quick selection of benchmarks:

In my testing the new AMD HD 2900 XT performed quite well in our series of DX9 benchmarks.  It was able to outperform NVIDIA on a couple of them, though not by a large margin, and we could pretty much conclude that it and the 8800 GTS 640MB cards are in a performance tie.  That's not a bad thing at all, and I think the HD 2900 XT will find its way into a lot of enthusiast systems, but the fact that AMD doesn't have any kind of answer to the 8800 GTX or 8800 Ultra is a bit unsettling.

Power

I think it's pretty obvious why this launch turned out the way it did; I'll call it the "NetBurst" effect.  AMD designed the R600 some time ago with the hopes of cranking up the clocks and getting performance that would blow the 8800 cards out of the water.  Unfortunately, the power consumption just turned out to be too much for modern day systems to handle under those specifications, and thus AMD was forced to turn performance down to meet reasonable power standards.  Much like Intel did with their Pentium 4 line, AMD is forced to cut the prices on their top card to put it in a different price segment to be competitive.

Pricing and Availability

AMD claimed that they would have availability of the Radeon HD 2900 XT today, on launch day, but as of noon EST, I have yet to see a card for sale.  As long as AMD can get some cards in and sold this week, I'll give them a "pass" rating on the hard launch though the other cards in the HD 2000 series aren't so lucky.  Sure, they were announced today, but you won't even get a chance on buying them until the end of June.  So if you are looking to upgrade to a mid-range card I wouldn't recommend waiting unless you really want to. 

The price on the AMD ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT is supposed to be set at $399 -- a good price point to hit a lot of gamers.  Unfortunately, despite my initial thought that the card would blow away anything else at this level, it turns out that the HD 2900 XT is just a good competitor to the GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB card that can be found for a similar price point.  I have a feeling that HD 2900 XT prices will quickly descend about $50 to be more price/performance competitive and then the choice could easily be in AMD's favor.

Update: The Radeon HD 2900 XTs are showing up for sale!

• HIS HD 2900 XT - $409
• Sapphire HD 2900 XT - $409
• PowerColor HD 2900 XT - $409
• Diamond HD 2900 XT - $419

Final Thoughts

Even though the AMD Radeon HD 2900 XT is able to compete well with NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB card and stay in the same pricing ball park, it's hard to not be disappointed by the R600 launch overall.  The fact is that AMD built a 700M transistor chip that uses upwards of 225 watts of power and that was considerably late to arrive that was only able to compete with the likes of a cut down version of NVIDIA's G80 architecture that is more than 6-months its senior.  We've already seen that NVIDIA has plenty of headroom on their G80 design; the 8800 Ultra is proof of that, so AMD has an uphill battle if they want to reclaim the crown in the enthusiast market.

For now though, the AMD Radeon HD 2900 XT card can offer a competitive gaming solution at its price point if you can overlook the issue of power consumption and efficiency. 

If you have any questions or comments on this review of the product itself, join in the discussion at this thread of our forums!

Be sure to use our price checking engine to find the best prices on the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT, and anything else you may want to buy!

Click here for the Detailed Review