When Nvidia released its graphics cards especially for Windows Vista users there was no competition. We had to wait six months for the 512MB ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT 3D video card from AMD to appear, with its price tag at 399$, and start competing with Nvidia’s 640MB GeForce 8800 GTS, who was a already winning product since November. HD video processing is also important near gaming performance best implemented in AMD and Nvidia card’s. Even if it has a strong performance, the Radeon HD 2900 XT does not bring it on top of the list, maybe today is hot for the home theater PC’s, but in the near future ATI cards might get a lot better in the midrange section.

Looking closer to the core of the Radeon HD 2900 XT we it’s very similar to the one on GeForce 8800 GTS. Specially design for the Windows Vista , both cards work with the next level of DirectX 10. Another approach between the two card’s it’s the dual graphics card mode, which Nvidia call it SLI, and Radeon named it Crossfire, therefore noo need for a much expensive “Master card” for performance. A new thing also common is the elimination of the cumbersome “Y” cable used in older versions, this card using only internal connectors.

Rather than separating the card’s processing pipelines for a separated type of calculation, the Radeon HD 2900 XT introduces the dubbed “steam processing” where all the pixels, vertices, and geometry are now calculated with a pool of 320 processing threads, dynamically allocated, similar to Nvidia card’s unified architecture. A more precise explanation for the pixel calculations is that the card opens a number of pipes for the many tasks demands that the vertex math can’t handle, making the Radeon HD 2900 XT more flexible. This gives a free hand for the game developers, know when a DirectX 10 PC can process more detail and complex scenes than older card versions have done before.

A catch up factor from Radeon HD 2900 XT is the anti-aliasing 8x speed growing from 6x speed, a place where Nvidia already dominated. This graphics like anti-aliasing and high dynamic simultaneously supported by the card are created under the custom-filter anti-aliasing, or CFAA. Nvidia is using the CSAA(coverage sampling anti-aliasing), and both modes creates a more polished 3D image with smoother edges. The card are so similar to each other that you can’t tell the difference, only running benchmarks the difference is visible in scores. The web is full of programs that can test the high performance of a video card like this one.

As you may seen the Radeon HD 2900 XT its very similar to GeForce 8000-series when compared, but ATI will always have an advantage due to its secret weapon already used in the past. This programmable tessellation unit gives a high level of details in the games which Nvidia can’t compete with. Even this image quality feature did not succeed in the past, today it will give an advantage to ATI , now already being presented in the Xbox 360’s graphics chip. In the near future we may see the Xbox 360 games make their way to the PC because of this tessellation engine, a friendly environment for Xbox and Windows.

The Radeon HD 2900 XT has 512MB of DDR3 SDRAM, splashing the rumors that ATI will bring on the market the DDR4, witch will not be used at the upcoming Radeon HD 2600 XT either. The memory interface is at 512-bit, the core clock speed comes in at 740MHz, with the memory at 1.650MHz.

After the card was tested with both Windows Vista and Windows XP, the result was a tie. The Radeon HD 2900 XT outpaced the 640MB GeForce 8800 GTS on Quake 4 and Company of Heroes, but was defeated by Nvidia on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and the new shooter Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl, this in single-card mode. In double card mode, the result were different, the card succeeded in Company of Heroes on Windows Vista, and in Quake 4 in Windows XP.

The multitude of rankings makes it very hard to determine a winner between the Radeon and GeForce only for their performances. Another factor, the price bring Nvidia higher with the 350$ price for 640MB GeForce 8800 GTS. Even now there’s no winner when ATI jumps the market with a alpha version of its next driver, the one who will boost anti-aliasing performance. Not that Nvidia has a beta driver released for the public, this making the compare between the two card more complicated that the release of DirectX10 new games to come.

The power that the Radeon HD 2000 cards have over Nvidia its because how they integrate into a home theater PC. Like other past card series like Radeon 2400 and 2600, the Radeon 2900 XT can support HD video decoding, while using all the onboard audio processors to route the audio signal from the PC through a HDMI adapter designed to do that. No need for connecting other internal cables. Too bad that Nvidia can’t do it and let’s Radeon to take all the credit and becoming our recomandation, not only for this but also for its size and its power consumption. As a double-wide card its not recommended for a home PC, for its large power consumption, making it unfriendly.

The power supply you should use and ATI recommends is a 550-watt power supply for only one Radeon HD 2900 XT card and a more powerfull 750-watt PSU supply for two cards. Even with one card you will use a lot of power supply, and on top of that it will get very hot, due to the hot air blown out from the back. Another bad characteristic is the noise, its pretty bad, and nobody would want a hot, large power consumer and irritating noise level in a home theater PC. But don’t get sad and wait for the midrange ATI cards, design on what a home PC needs.