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Diamond Viper Radeon 2900XT

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AMD’s decision not to compete with Nvidia’s best GPU left us puzzled, but the decision its manufacturing partners have made—to pair AMD’s second-tier GPU with a full gigabyte of GDDR4 memory—has us totally stumped.

We concluded in our August issue that PowerColor’s 512MB Radeon HD 2900XT is faster than Nvidia’s 8800 GTS, so we weren’t surprised to discover that Diamond’s card is faster too. But our benchmark testing indicates that doubling the size of the frame buffer—even if it uses fast GDDR4 memory—doesn’t improve performance by much, if anything at all. Frame rates certainly didn’t increase enough to justify the $100 price bump over 2900XT cards with 512MB frame buffers.

The GPU on Diamond’s card is clocked at the same speed as PowerColor’s entry (743MHz), but its memory is set to a cool 1GHz. With the exception of Quake 4, however, we saw an average increase of just one frame per second in our benchmark numbers compared to the aforementioned 512MB card.

We suspect the significant boost in Quake 4 performance—which jumped from 75.7fps on the PowerColor card to 86.2fps on Diamond’s—has more to do with driver improvements than frame buffer size. Performance increased along the same scale in CrossFire mode, with Quake 4’s frame rate benefiting the most (increasing from 127.8fps on the PowerColor card to 146.8fps on the Diamond).

If you use your PC for other high-end applications—such as CAD or 3D modeling—the massive frame buffer might do you some good, but those aren’t applications we focus on.

Click to Enlarge

Diamond’s HD 2900XT with 1GB of GDDR4 memory is faster than cards based on Nvidia’s 8800 GTS, but you can say the same about much-cheaper X2900XT cards with 512MB of GDDR3.

Diamond Viper Radeon 2900XT
www.diamondmm.com
plus
Diamonds Are Forever

1GB frame buffer, good Quake 4 scores

minus
Blood Diamonds

Huge buffer not really necessary; better for CAD and 3D modeling than gaming.

verdict:7
BENCHMARKS
  Radeon 2900XT
1GB GDDR4

Radeon 2900XT
1GB GDDR4
Crossfire

Radeon 2900XT
512MB GDDR3
GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB GDDR3
3DMark06 Game 1 (FPS) 22.7 44.1 21.5 19.4
3DMark06 Game 2 (FPS) 21.0 46.6 20.6 17.8
Quake 4 (FPS) 86.2 146.8 75.7 65.5
Fear (FPS) 64.0 105.0 63.0 52.0
Supreme Commander (FPS) 28.2 38.7 28.0 26.2
Best single-card scores are bolded. AMD-based cards tested with an Intel D975XBX2 motherboard; Nvidia-based cards tested with an EVGA 680i SLI motherboard. Intel 2.93GHz Core 2 Extreme X6800 CPUs and 2GB of Corsair DDR2 RAM used in both scenarios..
COMMENTS
avatari waz wondering if the 790fx

i waz wondering if the 790fx boards could support nvidia's sli boards. i hope they do cause nvidia's bfg 8800gts 512mb oc2 is better than quad asus 3870 tops

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avatarATI and nVidia

ATI and AMD's microarchitectures are better designed (more logical and elegant) than nVidia and Intel's. ATI and AMD smash nVidia and Intel on power and quality (features,) when compared dollar for dollar.

I remember a few years ago, when comparing ATI and nVidia cards, I discovered that nVidia cards weren't drawing all of the graphic effects, for the sake of fps. ATI was drawing everything, at the same fps.

3dfx killed themselves with their acquisition, more than nVidia hurt them. And, if AMD/ATI doesn't pull it off, we'll all be a lot worse off for it, big time. I sure wouldn't hope for them to die (dummy.)

IMHO, ATI's best offering, is better than any nVidia card at the same price.

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avatarAti vs nVidia

Why cant ATI just die already. Lets face it, nVidia makes way better cards.

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avatarif ati did that then we

if ati did that then we wouldn't be getting better videocards now would we?

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