Advanced Micro Devices on Tuesday officially confirmed existence of two new graphics cards that will serve performance-mainstream market. While the new boards seem to offer decent performance, they will be available for a limited time in limited quantities. Still, the new products will inevitably slowdown the possible demand towards dual-chip graphics gars from AMD’s partners.
“AMD is excited to announce the newest member of its flagship ATI Radeon HD 2900-series, the ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro. The ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro features the powerful next-generation unified shader architecture with 320 unified stream processors, comprehensive DirectX 10 support and built-in HDMI multimedia features for an immersive HD gaming experience,” a statement by AMD reads.
Unlike expected previously, the ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro graphics card features the same fully-fledged ATI R600 graphics processor with 320 unified shader processors (SPs), 16 texture units (TUs), 16 render back ends (RBEs) and 512-bit memory controller, but clocked at 600MHz instead of 742MHz on the HD 2900 XT model. The Radeon HD 2900 Pro also retains 512-bit memory bus and can come equipped with 512MB or 1GB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1600MHz, just a little down from memory frequency of HD 2900 XT models.
AMD’s partners will sell ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro 512MB for $249, whereas the model with 1GB of memory will have manufacturer suggested retail price of $299. It is interesting to note that some 1GB versions will have print-circuit boards with 12” length that may not fit into mainstream computer cases.
“The ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro is available today on a limited basis subject to supply constraints,” AMD stressed in its short press statement.
AMD has been criticized for quite some time for having a gap in its DirectX 10 lineup between $179 and $399 price-points on which the company responded that its partners will sell dual-chip ATI Radeon HD 2600 X2 graphics cards for about $249 to fight Nvidia’s GeForce 8600 GTS. But now that AMD’s partners started to sell the HD 2900 Pro for $249, it will not only distract attention from the lower-performance Radeon HD 2600 X2 (in fact, even two Radeon HD 2600 chips have only 240 unified shader processors compared to HD 2900’s 320 units), but will also cause some potential ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT buyers to change their minds, as the XT model has just a slight performance advantage over the Pro.
Typically, add-in-board partners would hardly be happy with a product that does not fit into the current lineup, however, this does not seem to be the case with the ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro, as it is an extremely limited edition offering.
“The HD 2900 Pro is not something AMD needs. Those are just ‘defective’ graphics cards [that could not run at 742MHz’ and there are very few of them, just about several thousands worldwide. In fact, we only accepted orders [on them] for several days,” said a representative of an add-in card supplier who wished to remain unnamed.
Comments currently:
7
Discussion started: 09/25/07 07:54:18 PM
Latest comment: 09/27/07 06:43:06 AM
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1.
8800GTS, ~$250-280 with and without rebates.
How is the 2900Pro going to be a good deal at its MSRP? It would do much better going for a $219 instead of $249, that way they can steal it all away from the horrible 8600gts and get a good deal of money there.
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Posted by: Joz
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Date: 09/25/07 07:54:18 PM]
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I'm sorry but the 2900PRO is much superior and also has more memory.
How can the better card cost less than the worst card?
The correct price for the 2900PRO 512MB is more than the 8800GTS 320MB and less than the 8800GTS 640MB.
The 2900PRO 1024MB price should be more than the 8800GTS 640MB and less than the GTX 768MB.
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Posted by: Joker
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Date: 09/27/07 06:39:24 AM]
2.
lol :! the 2900pro will destroy the 8800GTS 320MB easy :! also where do you buy a 8800GTS 320mb for $250 :! looking at the spec and leaked early benchmark !
I think this card will sell it out in the 1st week after its launch :!
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Posted by: Panzer_V
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Date: 09/25/07 08:38:25 PM]
3.
If the 2900pros are just XTs which couldn't hit the standard XT frequencies, then why do review sites seem to be overclocking them above that so far?
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Posted by: dw
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Date: 09/26/07 01:53:25 AM]
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That is obviously a lie.
Where are the 2900XT 1GB "widely" available?
They don’t want to sell many of those because they have the “real” 2900PRO design almost ready. 320 processors on a 256bit memory controller.
The same happened with the X1900GT.
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Posted by: Joker
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Date: 09/27/07 06:43:06 AM]
4.
Engineer samples are better overclockers, Retail ones are always worse
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Posted by: yasin
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Date: 09/26/07 12:19:25 PM]
5.
Not a terrible price.
These are slightly defective XT cards for much less $, no doubt some of them will overclock very well, while other samples won't.
Tis a shame there is soo few of these available, and that NVIDIA will probably have a better $250 card come November =\
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Posted by: gamebro
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Date: 09/26/07 01:52:29 PM]
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