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AMD’s ATI Radeon HD 2900 GT unveiled
Author: Tim SmalleyPublished: 1st October 2007
AMD's ATI Radeon HD 2900 GT hopes to bridge the gap between the high-end and mainstream product segments.
The HD 2900 GT is based on the R600 graphics processing unit that’s at the heart of the 2900 XT, but the specifications have been cut back in order to fit it into the middle of AMD’s product portfolio. Instead of the 64 five-way superscalar shader processors (320 stream processors), there are just 48 shader processors (or 240 stream processors) in the Radeon HD 2900 GT.
Memory bandwidth has also been cut on the Radeon HD 2900 GT too, as R600’s 512-bit memory interface has been cut quite literally in half to 256-bits.
The GPU clock is set at 600MHz for the time being, while the memory will be 256MB of GDDR3 running at 1600MHz. From what we gather, there will still be 16 pixel output engines in the Radeon HD 2900 GT, meaning that pixel fillrate isn’t too much lower than it is on the flagship HD 2900 XT.
The cooling solution looks to be exactly the same dual-slot cooler that’s on the Radeon HD 2900 XT, but we’d expect it to be a little quieter under load. However, don’t expect the card to use much less power though, as it’ll still feature both 6-pin and 8-pin power connectors.
In addition to this, the card includes obvious support for DirectX 10 and native CrossFire. There’s also the inbuilt audio processing chip that enables 5.1 audio over DVI when using the bundled DVI-to-HDMI converter. Of course, if you’re not using the HDMI converter, both of the dual-link DVI ports are HDCP compliant, meaning you can connect two 30” monitors to the card and still be able to play protected HD content back.
Performance characteristics and pricing are both unknown at the time of publication, but we'd expect it to cost around £150-160. We’ll bring you updates on both fronts as soon as we know more.
Discuss in the forums.
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ati is really on a roll lately if it comes to real midrange cards... first the 2900 pro and not a gt... thx god for ati and their real midrange cards.
not to defend the 2600 and 8600, but i wouldnt quite call any 2900 right now mid range, simply because the buggers are damn pricey
to me the 2900gt is lower high end, 160 quid is simply too much for me to classify it as mid end. And TBH im quite dissapointed that this thing uses the same size PCB and cooler as the XT, with half the memory traces, less active transistors and less clock speed, it should be able to use a much simpler and smaller PCB with less idiotic power demands
with the 8800GTS 320 starting at 150 quid as well, i dont see why anyone would want this thing
hehe yep... but a bit on the expensive sid for my back up comp (where the cpu would bottleneck it anyway).. but yep.. the 8800 GTS is a good card...
but if they would sell the 2900 GT at around 120 - 130£ they would slap nvidia in the face because they only have the crappy 8600 Cards in the low price area.
The HD2900 Pro 512 MB review at Tweaktown showed that card to be comparable to or just beat the 8800 GTS 320 MB (except in Lost Planet, surprise...). As it´s also lower priced in retail than the 8800 GTS 320, the HD2900 Pro 512 MB seems to be a better deal than 8800 GTS 320 MB, right now at least.
To be competitive the slower HD2900 GT has to be much, much lower priced than the suggested £150-160 in the article, at that price it's not fighting the 8800 GTS 320 MB but the HD2900 Pro 512 MB...
No judgement until true pricing and performance are revealed!
/m
With regards to pricing, ATI/AMD have to be cheaper than nVIDIA when it comes to specs vs specs
Its the only way to gain marketshare.
I agree with steelmartin. :)