ATI HD2900XT 1GB Graphics Card or the NVIDIA 8800 Ultra Graphics Card?
Filed under: Computer Hardware, Computers | By: Joe
Posted on: August 20, 2007 | 17 Comments
One thing I have noticed from the hardware battle of nvidia and ATI is that greater clock speeds do not mean greater boot times or higher benchmark results. For example, nvidias new 8800 ultra has around twice the clock speed of ATI’s hd2900xt 1gb, but it does no better in benchmarks, or overclocking.
There is a $230 price difference, with the hd2900xt 1gb as the cheaper at $500 from newegg, where as the ultra costs $730, what does the extra $230 buy? And so we look to see which does better in benchmarks and game performance.
The the processing power of the ATI hd2900xt 1gb is 512-bit, and the 8800 ultra only does 384-bit. Then the stream processing units, the hd2900xt 1gb has 320, more than double the 8800 ultra which has a measly 128. It also wins out on clock speeds, the 2900xt has a 743mhz clock, and the 8800 ultra has 655mhz, which just give the 2900xt one more reason to be on the shopping list. That’s still better than most of the graphics cards on the planet, but it is not as good as the hd2900xt.
Then there is video memory, the 8800 ultra has a good 768mb of GDDR3, but come on, that’s not much to be proud of we have had that for at least 2 years now, the hd2900xt has a gigabyte of GDDR4 memory, now that’s more like it. This is probably the only feature that gives the 8800 ultra a slight edge, its memory clock speed is 2.25ghz, compared with 2ghz for the 2900xt. Not enough to make anyone pay the extra $230.
What do you think?
Do you prefer the ATI HD2900XT 1GB Graphics Card or the NVIDIA 8800 Ultra Graphics Card?
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What is this, satire? Is this spoof.com? The HD2900XT doesnt even compete with the ultra. The HD2900XT is more in line with the 8800GTS. You can easily see that on tom’s hardware, dailytech, xbit, and many other independent sites that do benchmarking. (And actually show the data, not just talk about it!)
The 8800 ultra has “a measely 128″ stream processors. Do you even know what a stream processor is?
“the processing power of the ATI hd2900xt 1gb is 512-bit” No it is not. That is memory bus width, not processing power. All this means is that the nvidia can only drive 3 2560×1920 displays, whereas the ati could probably drive four. But who is going to do that? The card doesnt even have 4 outputs on it anyways. Anyone with a monitor setup that doesnt cost more than 5 grand is not going to use 1 gig of memory. And besides, anyone who spends that much on monitors is probably going to be running two of these cards…
Try showing some real benchmarks.
This is obviously a blatant post by individual(s) paid off by AMD’s marketing department. Rather than waste your money on writing crap about Nvidia, why don’t you guys put it towards your R&D and make something that can actually win? By having more stream processors, more bits, more blah blah blah isn’t going to help in the end if the performance is crap.
All this article shows is a sheer comparison between the “specs” of the top of the line cards of Nvidia and AMD, and in the end AMD loses, simply because its cards aren’t even geared towards the general population. As Shadowmaster625 has stated, who cares if the Ultra can drive 3 - 2560×1920 and AMD can drive 4. What matters is the mainstream resolutions such as 1600 and 1920, of which the Ultra literally blows the HD2900XT away.
In fact the regular 8800GTX blows the HD2900XT away:
http://hardware.gotfrag.com/portal/story/38332/?spage=6
And for a comparable price?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814122017
==> $519.99 regular and with rebate: $484.99
Needless to say AMD screwed up with their design and are now trying to lie to the general public in order to get them to buy their inferior product. Talk about lack of ethics.
Ok, the ATI part has more memory, more memory pins, more memory bandwidth, more than twice as many stream processors, and is clocked faster. Yet it’s not faster than the nVidia part. And so that makes the ATI part better? I would call that inefficient.
A little bit funny …
No idea why 2900XT is better and it is even not the same level stuff.
Worst. Review. Ever.
this article is totally favored in or biased at amd’s video card. whoever is reading this, please go to tomshardware.com to look at the benchmarks that is available.
I had to check the calendar…. thought it was April 1st again.
This is just “#¤% lol. This was obviously written by someone that has less knowledge about graphics cards than a goat.
To: Icarusmk2
You’re a fool if you actually think AMD pays people to write biased reviews on third rate websites. This article is the result of fan-boy-ism, which you seem to be a peddler of yourself, being that you have this idea that AMD runs a propaganda campaign.
Tooth for tooth, nVidia won the DX10 race, but AMD is supposed to come out with something ground breaking for next gen. Well, at least we all better hope so, unless we want to see a monopoly and 1000$ graphics cards.
Hey Joe, what’s your last name? How come your review is so anonymous? You’re proud of yourself right?