It has been a long time coming but today AMD is finally set to release its massively anticipated GPU codenamed R600 XT to the world with the official retail name of ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT. It is a hugely important part for AMD right now, who recently posted massive profit loss figures. It is counting on all these new models, along with the high-end 512MB GDDR3 DirectX 10 part with 512-bit memory interface to kick ass and help raise revenue reports against the current range from the green GeForce team, which is selling like super hot cakes. The new R600 range of graphics processing units was set to see a release at the end of March, but due to production issues, it got delayed and delayed. - TweakTown

ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT 512MB PCI Express Review

Eventually the folks at AMD got their act together and made some clear-cut decisions and got production issues under control and underway. It was eventually leaked out to the world that the R600 XTX would be reserved for system integrators due to its size and heat related issues, you may or may not see this GPU in OEM systems from companies like Dell and HP. That model will measure a staggering 12-inches long and probably will not be suitable for every computer case or configuration. It was deemed unacceptable for the consumer retail space and hence was scrapped from all plans.

Today AMD is launching an enthusiast part Radeon HD 2900 series with the Radeon HD 2900 XT, performance parts with the Radeon HD 2600 series including the Radeon HD 2600 XT and PRO, along with value parts including the Radeon HD 2400 XT and PRO. The Radeon HD 2600 series have had issues of their own and you will need to wait a little longer before being able to buy these various models on shop shelves. The Radeon HD 2900 XT will be available at most of your favorite online resellers as of today. Quantity is not too bad but a little on the short side.

The R600 is AMD's first range of top to bottom DirectX 10 graphics cards with fully certified support for Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system. While DirectX 10 GPU support might not be very important right at this moment, soon it will be a requirement to experience the best graphics potential from current games, which are awaiting DirectX 10 patches, and upcoming games such as Crysis, Alan Wake and Unreal Tournament 3. Sadly it is basically impossible for us to provide comparative DirectX 10 benchmark numbers between AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards at the moment.

Keep in mind that the high-end Radeon HD 2900 XT uses 80nm process technology from TSMC but the other Radeon HD 2000 series use the more power efficient and cooler operating 65nm process. It is said that AMD will launch the faster R650 at a later stage this year that are also based on the improved 65nm process, which will allow AMD to ramp up clock speeds and fight harder against NVIDIA. You were thinking it and you are right it will probably only be three or four months before your brand new Radeon graphics card has been replaced with a faster model but that is just the way things seem to be now.

Due to limited availability as well as the fact press in different regions are getting priority over others, we tested an actual retail graphics card from PowerColor. It has the same clock speeds as all other reference cards floating around, meaning 742MHz core clock and 512MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1656MHz effective. As far as size goes, the Radeon HD 2900 XT is a little longer than the Radeon X1950 XTX but a good deal shorter than the GeForce 8800 GTX accelerator. Both of the other cards take up two slots and the Radeon HD 2900 XT is no different.

AMD's new series of R600 DirectX 10 graphics cards are finally here and we have had plenty of time to examine them but we are left with a tough decision if we should recommend the Radeon HD 2900 XT or not. It impressed us considering the price tag and the extras such as sound output through DVI to HDMI adapters and the Valve software bundle but it leaves us wondering if AMD could have done a little better... AMD lost its chance to take the GPU performance crown here when the planned R600 XTX with 1GB GDDR4 fell through the cracks and did not see the light of day, at least in the channel.

Summing it up, we are happy to see a new high-end Radeon graphics card from AMD, it literally is the red hot flaming monster but it manages to offer a good amount of performance and impressive feature set with full DirectX 10 and Shader Model 4.0, CrossFire and Windows Vista support and a host of others which we did not even have enough time to cover in full today, such as improved anti-aliasing and UVD. It was a long time coming but it is able to offer very good bang for buck against the equivalent from NVIDIA, but only the GeForce 8800 GTS.