Tech Link (GPU): AMD's Next-Gen GPU Is Here! (Or Is It?)

Instead of reading thru all the reviews and sorting out the worthy ones from scrap, I found a blog post summarizing most, if not all, of the conclusion and thoughts about the new video card. I will not sugar coat it, the new AMD/ATi video card sucks major behind. Don't get this video card, it's bad for your wallet and your electric consumption. Expand to check out the gathered conclusion from PC World Game On blogger.

* Check the following sampling of conclusions about the HD 2900 XT ($399 MSRP) from a few of the enthusiast sites, with links to their reviews below each quote. (While the HD 2900 XT is available as of today, the lower-end cards are paper launches only, with a July 1 street date.)

"As it stands right now the Radeon HD 2900 XT, in our opinion, is a flop."

- [H]ard|OCP

"If ATI can lick the noise issue, we would recommend this card over all others in its price range, even despite the power requirements."

- Extreme Tech

"[AMD has] delivered a pretty good value in a $399 graphics card, so long as you're willing to overlook its higher power draw and noise output while you're gaming."

- The Tech Report

"AMD might not have retaken the performance crown but that does not mean that the GPU’s [sic] still are not impressive."

- Bjorn 3D

"Not the fastest video card in the market for sure, but definitely holds it's [sic] own at it's [sic] current price-point."

- VR-Zone

"Everybody was expecting and hoping for a product that would wipe the floor clean with NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 GTX/Ultra. That's just not the case. Performance wise the Radeon HD 2900 XT has a very hard time coming even close to these product [sic] in a lot of scenarios."

- Guru 3D

Source:AMD's Next-Gen GPU Is Here! (Or Is It?)

Rant: ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT Performance Benchmarks

Ok, this is not a Tech Link for a reason, and it's just my random rant. I happen to stumble upon this AMDtech news bit (yes, yes, I know it's DailyTech) from XS. It is about AMD's upcoming video card, and no, that's not my rant, but before I post my rant, let me quote part of the news bits:

Onto the benchmarks. The tests were conducted on an Intel D975XBX2 BadAxe2, Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 and 2x1GB DDR2-800 MHz. The operating system on the test system was Windows XP, with a fresh install before benchmarking each card. Testing of the AMD ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT was performed using the 8.361 Catalyst RC4 drivers, while the GeForce 8800 GTS used ForceWare 158.19 drivers.

I bolded the items which I wanted to emphasize. So here's the rant: why would AMD used a Bad Axe 2, of all the boards capable of CrossFire? And didn't ATi already have their very own chipset that supports CrossFire with an AMD CPU? Or if I am mistaken, I know there's a board for Intel that has an ATi chipset that can support Crossfire and quad core (Fatal1ty F-I90HD) so why not this one instead? And even if they really prefer i975, why not Asus for such demo?

I know that they can use anything they like, but I just find it odd that of all the possible alternatives, they end up with a competitor's board, and chipset, not to mention, processor.

Update (04/26/2007): Apparently, DailyTech is the one running the benchmark. I am really not sure, because their first paragraph is as clear as mud and can be very easily mis understood:

After several delays, AMD plans to launch its long-awaited R600 graphics processors. AMD is currently briefing select members of the press on its R600 architecture in the Tunisia, but there is no embargo date on the R600 for DailyTech -- we can show you benchmarks now.

Anyway, here's the update that makes it much clearer now:

* Our benchmarks for Half Life 2: Episode 1 showed an abnormal framerate for the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS card that scaled with lower resolutions -- we believe there was a copy error. We reran the tests this morning and achieved 119.2 frames per second with the GeForce 8800 GTS.