Why the HD 2900xt is better.

[jagjitnatt]

Actually you know what guys, c don't need those Kilowatt power supplies. If you have a branded power supply and its over 400 watts, you can run 2900XT. I am not saying that. ATI says that, and I know its true.
Check the power input of all the devices in ur pC

AMD CPU - 65 watts or 90 watts (check your version on AMD site)
Intel CPU - 65 watts to 110 watts ( same here)
2900XT - 200 watts (75watts from PCIe slot + 75X2 from 2 6pin is the max, but it requires 25 watts less)
8800GTX - 175 watts (same maths here)
RAM - 15 watts per GB stick
Motherboard - 25 watts
PCI device - 10 watts
HDD - 15 watts
CD drive - 20 watts
Fans - 2to 3 watts

Sum it up.
This is the power requirement when your PC is being maxed out i.e. your processor's all cores are on 100% usage, your RAM is full, GPU is doing some GPGPU thing, motherboard is like frying, PCI devices are being used to max, cd drives rotating at highest speed, and fans too at highest speed.
This situation is impossible to achieve.
Add your complete power specs and then calculate 75% of it.
That is the total power usage of your PC. Surprised at how low it is???
But PSU degrades with life and degrades as much as 15%. Also they are only 75% efficient.
So double your final calculation and that should be a good future proof PSU for you.
Infact I have run Crossfire using 2 X850XT on VANtec Ion2 460 watts with X2 4600 which requires 110 watts at load.

 

[tkpenalty]

Actually you know what guys, c don't need those Kilowatt power supplies. If you have a branded power supply and its over 400 watts, you can run 2900XT. I am not saying that. ATI says that, and I know its true.
Check the power input of all the devices in ur pC

AMD CPU - 65 watts or 90 watts (check your version on AMD site)
Intel CPU - 65 watts to 110 watts ( same here)
2900XT - 200 watts (75watts from PCIe slot + 75X2 from 2 6pin is the max, but it requires 25 watts less)
8800GTX - 175 watts (same maths here)
RAM - 15 watts per GB stick
Motherboard - 25 watts
PCI device - 10 watts
HDD - 15 watts
CD drive - 20 watts
Fans - 2to 3 watts

Sum it up.
This is the power requirement when your PC is being maxed out i.e. your processor's all cores are on 100% usage, your RAM is full, GPU is doing some GPGPU thing, motherboard is like frying, PCI devices are being used to max, cd drives rotating at highest speed, and fans too at highest speed.
This situation is impossible to achieve.
Add your complete power specs and then calculate 75% of it.
That is the total power usage of your PC. Surprised at how low it is???
But PSU degrades with life and degrades as much as 15%. Also they are only 75% efficient.
So double your final calculation and that should be a good future proof PSU for you.
Infact I have run Crossfire using 2 X850XT on VANtec Ion2 460 watts with X2 4600 which requires 110 watts at load.

^ITS TRUE.

Yes, manufacturers over emphasize the need for a "powerful" PSU. As he said a 400W PSU is enough, but barely, if it has a high efficiency of 80% then... your 100% safe. I wouldnt go with 400 because they only come with one 6 pin PCI-E at the max.

My system uses 300W... I didnt do my research and ended up spending more than I should have.

 

[strick94u]

i was talking about a gtx, not a gts, and the 640mb gts is about the same price as the 2900xt, and the 2900 still owns it.

As for the power, boo-hoo, go get a new PSU, lol.

Very little diffrence between a 640 gts and a 2900 if the 2900 does own it why is the price of the 8800 gts 640 mb not droping faster? I am hopeing the 2900xtx drives the price of the nvidia slicone down so I can get a gtx. I used to be AMD only till they dropped behind nvidia in development, its a short drop to become the next 3dfx voodoo. I do see the 2900 running stock beating the 8800 gts in a few benchs but its a a slim line between the 2 both ways "OWN"? Lets look at who dominates whom in the markit place.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Thats true but unfortunatly it does not take into account overclocking....most of us here overclock and the additional power requirements in overclocking can be very significant, you do not need to double a CPU's speed to double it's power draw, on the contrary in fact, same applies to the graphics card which for example, as it gets stressed can consume at times horriific power, you only need to look at my old 1800XT, 9Amp idle stock, 13Amp idle max overclock, 15Amp stock load, 20Amp overclocked load.....thats kind of double going from a core speed of 625 to 730Mhz.

I do agree with both of you however that manufacturers to tend to go overboard in power consumtion requirements.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Very little diffrence between a 640 gts and a 2900 if the 2900 does own it why is the price of the 8800 gts 640 mb not droping faster? I am hopeing the 2900xtx drives the price of the nvidia slicone down so I can get a gtx. I used to be AMD only till they dropped behind nvidia in development, its a short drop to become the next 3dfx voodoo. I do see the 2900 running stock beating the 8800 gts in a few benchs but its a a slim line between the 2 both ways "OWN"? Lets look at who dominates whom in the markit place.

I think it will, I am guessing that when the 8900 is released....not sure when...Oct?, the 8800GTX will become mid/upper mid and will need to have it's price reflect that, Ie a GTX for cheaper than the 2900XT.

 

[Ketxxx]

Your looking a bit green today tatty

 

[jagjitnatt]

You still believe nVIDIA will release 8900??
I don't think so. What we heard about was the 8800 Ultra. 8900 doesn't exist and won't exist either.
nVIDIA will move on to 9000 series next year some time.
But 9000 is not coming any soon. It will take atleast a year from here when DX10 becomes mainstream and a revision to DX10 is made.

 

[AsRock]

I noticed this http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1744&Itemid=1

How much you can trust it i don't know. BUT to be honest i don't trust reviews most of the time.

 

[Juic3]

Youre basically saying you dont use AA at all, I guess R600 is just the thing for you.

Nvidia has no real reason thx to ATI to release an 8900, and fudzilla ?

 

[GJSNeptune]

You can't trust fudzilla.

It's FUDzilla. C'mon.

 

[MarcusTaz]

The new Catalyst 7.6 drivers have dropped my temps both idle and under load 3D by 10c..

Logic tells me that power consumption is down, now at the expense of frame rates and performance, it is hard to say. my 3d marks or true in game play have no suffered so I can say I think not, but raw numbers to measure actual power consumption someone tell me how to do it. Would I need a Amp meter to measure, I wonder....

Also interesting someone posted this review on newegg about the 1GB verison of the card and I was wondering if anyone can confirm this, and I quote:

"Other Thoughts: Please be advised there appears to be 2 versions of this video card. 1 comes with Samsung memory IC: K4U52324QE BC09 which is 1.1GHz @ 2.2Gbps. The other is Samsung memory IC: K4U52324QE BC06 which is 1.6GHz @ 3.2Gbps. According to Samsung Press release dated June 28, 2007. I (and assume others) would like to buy this card using the "better" ram. So any information from users who purchased the card or others would be appricated"

I just sold my Diamond 512mb version and order the Sapphire 1GB verion. If the above quote is true I hope I get the better memory....

 

[mandelore]

again peeps compare cards based on dx9 tests... cmon, surely u realise now that its in the fields of dx10 where the champ will be decided

 

[ryboto]

^ITS TRUE.

Yes, manufacturers over emphasize the need for a "powerful" PSU. As he said a 400W PSU is enough, but barely, if it has a high efficiency of 80% then... your 100% safe. I wouldnt go with 400 because they only come with one 6 pin PCI-E at the max.

My system uses 300W... I didnt do my research and ended up spending more than I should have.

your system, if it's the one listed in your specs, doesn't use 300W, maybe at load it uses a little over 200. The manufacturers rate things at their highest possible peak output/consumption. With cpu's, at least with AMD, TDP is set for a range of processors. An X2 3600 is in the 65W category, but do you really think that it uses as much power, or produces as much heat as an X2 5600 65W? As for the HD 2900...I really wish Ati had done a better job making sure everything was up to snuff out the door, why have such a delayed hardware launch, and not even have prepared proper software for them?

 

[Tatty_Two]

Your looking a bit green today tatty

Thanks, like I didnt notice.....am on antibiotics tho

 

[Tatty_Two]

You still believe nVIDIA will release 8900??
I don't think so. What we heard about was the 8800 Ultra. 8900 doesn't exist and won't exist either.
nVIDIA will move on to 9000 series next year some time.
But 9000 is not coming any soon. It will take atleast a year from here when DX10 becomes mainstream and a revision to DX10 is made.

There are some so called facts out there which suggest that the 8800 series is a cut down 8900, in the GTX something like 160 shader processors have been disabled so the technology is already done, if it's true, and I am not saying it is but there is a little bit of credibility from what I can see in some of what I have read then it was a pretty smart move, they could just leave the 8800GTX clocks exactly as they are and enable the lot and gain prob 30%.

Like I said, I dont beleive everything I read but it's a possibility I suppose. There is actually a very good and credible article about it in these forums from about 3 months ago.

 

[petepete]

7800 GTX Was ownage, then the 7900 GTX came out..

8800 GTX is ownage, THE 8900 WILL COME OUT... do you think they will just skip it?


FX 5800, to FX 5900


it will come out...

 

[yogurt_21]

7800 GTX Was ownage, then the 7900 GTX came out..

8800 GTX is ownage, THE 8900 WILL COME OUT... do you think they will just skip it?


FX 5800, to FX 5900


it will come out...

um no 7800gtx got crushed by the x1800xt not even close ok sure nvidia released the uber rare 512mb version with superclocks, but the x1800 could oc past the performance of the oced 7800gtx 512mb and the x1800 was mainstream.
7900gtx got crushed by the x1900xtx again not even close

fx5800 crushed by the 9700pro not even close, in fact the 5800 can't even run dx9 properly.

5900 crushed by the 9800 pro, 5950 crushed by the 9800xt.

so no ati has had the market as far as lead performance goes in most recent launches, save for the 6800series and now the 8800 series.

 

[petepete]

ok dude where did i talk about AMD/ATI? you are trying to prove a point for no reason because im not comparing ATI vs Nvidia, just from nvidia cards. just do this please


i wasnt even comparing AMD/ATI cards so your reply is useless

 

[Tatty_Two]

To be honest, I am surprised this thread is still open, it just invites flame from those less self disciplined

 

[Grings]

 

[theonetruewill]

 

[LonGun]

Sometimes we kept going on and on at something until Mr. (?) comes in and flip the page

 

[largon]

(...)
2900XT - 200 watts (75watts from PCIe slot + 75X2 from 2 6pin is the max, but it requires 25 watts less)
8800GTX - 175 watts (same maths here)
(...)

Your figures are too high. Power connector specs != total consumption.
2900XT peak consumption is "only" ~170W. 8800GTX peaks at 145W.

edit:
Infact, even these figures appear to be a bit too high as 8800GTX maximum 3D peak was measured to be as low as 130W.

 

[MarcusTaz]

yea what he said

 

[m3lisk]

To be honest, I am surprised this thread is still open

Wow, me too. I decided to bite the bullet and order an ASUS HD 2900xt STALKER edition card though for like $435 on tigerdirect...