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Why is the ATi 2900XT not as good as the 8800GTS?

Fry750

Fry750

Fry750

Associate
Joined
5 May 2007
Posts
1,470
Hello all.

I can't understand why the 2900XT isn't as good as the 8800GTS

It has 320 stream processors, 512MB and 512bit memory and can do 24x anti aliasing, compared to the 96, 320mb and 320bit memory and 16x anti aliasing.
 
the 2900XT is slightly faster than the 8800GTS 640mb in some games, slower in others.

The 8800GTX is a much better card but at a higher cost
 
Without sounding tedious and repetitive, WHY is it just about quicker than the GTS in some circumstances? I have never understood why it gets trounced by the GTS/X even though it has more stream processors, larger bit memory and can do up to 24x anti aliasing. Oh well
 
If the jump from 96 to 112 stream processors can affect the frame rate on games, then surely the 320 of the 2900 could achieve so much more
 
Its a tad confusing this but here goes.

The GTS had 96 stream processors that can only do 1 instruction at a time, while the HD2900 actually has 64 but can do 5 instructions at once (64 x 5 = 320), so ATI need to keep the processors fed so thay can do their 5 instructions at once. At the moment they cannot do this.
 
Even the 8800 GT is a much better card than the 2900 XT, and they are £100+ cheaper than it.

Specs mean nothing, yes the 2900 has 320 streams, it should be wiping the floor with the GTX's measly 128, but its all in the way they are used, not how many its got, and thats where the 2900 falls down, as on paper its better than the GTX, but the way it uses those specs is what buggers it.
 
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The 2900 has been equalling and besting the gts for a good while now in some of the newer games that have come out. Im near sure with the 8800gt reviews yesterday some graphs had the 2900 beating that out in some games as well.
 
waso_dude said:
Look at a core2duo @ 1.8 its better than and coreduo @ 3ghz... its all to do with how the cpu works.
Click to expand...

Just because I'm picky and a CoreDuo fanboy... :p
Only the Smithfield/Presler Pentium duallies would be beaten by that margin, the Yonah would be mildly competitive at similar clocks.
 
Because their design is not efficient enough, and their shaders operate at a much lower clockrate, espically if clocking Nvidia cards.
 
Don't forget that the stream processors on the 8000 series cards run much faster than the rest of the GPU, up to 1.3GHz if I remember correctly.
That extra speed on the stream processors gives it a huge boost in performance.
 
I had a 2900 until the other day " got my GT coming tomorrow:D " it was a good card and did the job for me, in the end though, ATI did screw it up, they had a good nine months on Nvidia to come out with something special but on first release it had trouble keeping up with the GTS, overall now its on par with a GTS but in some games where AA is applied the 2900 performance can be bad, and DX10 is currently very poor on the card as well. The new card coming out in november had better compete with the GT, if not, ATI's reputation is going to sink even lower. Nvidia with the GT must be a real kick in the nuts for ATi, i hope they can recover with a top notch challenger to the GT.
 
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