ATI HD 2900 XT Review

Probably the most important factor going into purchasing a new video card is value and pricing. From our benchmarking results, we can conclude that the 2900XT will outperform the GeForce GTS 640MB in some cases and lose in some others. To say whether one is better than the other right now would be neglecting the fact that none of our games are DX10 compatible, in fact no games are DX10 compatible currently (although the world's first downloadable DX10 playable demo will be available this or next week, which ups the ante quite a bit). So what we can take into account is value. From a bundling standpoint alone, the 2900XT has several package items that will be of value to most if not all people buying the card. The gaming voucher from Valve will allow you to play all three new releases from the giant game developer and apparently a fourth game, Day of Defeat: Source, will also be part of the voucher as well. All of these games are produced off the Source engine and have historic backgrounds (minus portal). Secondly the HDMI converter is a sweet addition which works in tandem with the on-chip audio controller to carry both audio and video feeds. If anything is lacking for the G80 series right now it is HDMI availability.