Radeon HD 2900 PRO 512mb : user feedback?

[Phizlet@blueyon]

My computer shop is trying to flog me a Sapphire 2900. I'm curious. Any pros and cons on this - and, indeed, Nvidia v Radeon - would be very welcome. [Noise is a major factor for me!]

[Webby]

The 2900 is on a par with the newer 3870 performance wise however you can get a 3870 for £130 how much are they saying for the 2900? In addition to that the power consumption of the 3870 is about half the 2900 so less heat and consequently less noise!

ATI vs nVidea
£100 you can get a 3850 256MB
£120 will get you a 8800 GT 256MB
£130 will get you a 3870 512MB
£170 will get you a 8800 GT 512MB

Personally I would go for the 3870 over the 8800 GT 256MB as at higher resolutions the lack of memory may be an issue, but if your willing to spend the extra and its all about performance then the 8800 GT 512MB is the better card for game playing.

[staffsMike]

At £120 I would get the 512mb HD3850 not the 256mb 8800GT.

256mb GT doesn't seem very good value in comparison.

I wouldn't bother with the 2900pro unless it's £100 or less considering what you can get as per Webby's suggestions.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I have seen the 256bit 512mb 2900pro for £95 at Ebuyer:

Sapphire HD 2900Pro 512MB GDDR3 256bit Dual DVI PCI-E Graphics Card - Ebuyer

I wonder how this compares to the HD3850??

[staffsMike]

Well the 2900XT was pretty much the same as the 8800GTS 320mb/640mb version as i remember.
So I would imagine the pro would lose out at least a little bit to the GTS.

The HD3850pro is pretty much on par with that 8800GTS in most tests especially when overclocked at it is a bit of an overclocking freak. It also uses far less power and is much quieter as Webby said (with aftermarket cooling I imagine, the stock cooler looks to be a little nosiey)

So the 2900pro even at £95 looks less and less appealing.

[Webby]

I left the 3850 512MB out as at current prices I would move up to the 3870 for the extra £10 I only included the 256MB GT to show nVidea's "budget" option.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I was just wondering whether the fact that the 2900pro has 256mb more RAM than the HD3850 would give it an advantage. The cheapest 512mb HD3850 cards are around £115.

[staffsMike]

There was one or cheap 512mb one's in the bargain section for about £105

Not sure about the 256mb HD3850 vs 512mb PRO.

The PRO as I remember is a limited edition card so won't be around much longer, this make make it worth something to someone later on but to be honest I think it will just fade away as it was never anything special.

The 8800GS was announced yesterday and dabs have it on preorder. That might be another card worth considering.

If it were my money I would get the 512mb HD3850.

[Webby]

Well the 2900XT was pretty much the same as the 8800GTS 320mb/640mb version as i remember.
So I would imagine the pro would lose out at least a little bit to the GTS.

The HD3850pro is pretty much on par with that 8800GTS in most tests especially when overclocked at it is a bit of an overclocking freak. It also uses far less power and is much quieter as Webby said (with aftermarket cooling I imagine, the stock cooler looks to be a little nosiey)

So the 2900pro even at £95 looks less and less appealing.

The stock cooling solution is apparently reasonably quiet but not having heard it myself I can't say for sure, Powercolor offer a version with a Zalman fan already installed which could be worth a look as well, the 3870 version is overclocked to 800MHz clock and 2400MHz Memory and comes in at £143 on scan

Oh and realistically if your looking for quiet and cool I think the 2900pro would need to be costing ~£75 so you could get a decent cooler on it as well.

[shadowmaster]

AMD Radeon HD 3870/3850 Performance Preview

From this review depending on the game, the 2900 pro is quite similar to the HD3850 even though it has 256mb more ram.

If I was to buy an amd 3850 I would get the 512mb version. The cheapest is at Aria for £110 inc delivery.

ATI Radeon HD 3850 512MB - PCI-E2.0 - Aria Technology

[staffsMike]

The stock cooling solution is apparently reasonably quiet but not having heard it myself I can't say for sure, Powercolor offer a version with a Zalman fan already installed which could be worth a look as well

Thats kool. It's actually a ZeroTherm cooler but it's supposed to be quite effective

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Powercolour PCS range have the Zerotherm cooler.

[Webby]

I stand corrected

[Pob255]

The Problem with the power colour PCS is that the fan seem to be set at a fixed 100% and is rather hard to shift off that 100% which leads to the card being a bit noisey
3870 version, the 3850 seems to be quieter, slower fan maybe?

rival forum thread about it they have a nice solution to the noise problem, unplug the fan and strap a 120mm case fan to it

One other thing to mention about the stock cooling is that the gpu, memory and PWM coolers are seperate so it's easy to remove the stock shroud, fan and gpu cooler to fit a 3rd party cooler while leaveing the memory and pwm sinks in place.

[Blitzen]

The 2900 is on a par with the newer 3870 performance wise however you can get a 3870 for £130 how much are they saying for the 2900? In addition to that the power consumption of the 3870 is about half the 2900 so less heat and consequently less noise!

ATI vs nVidea
£100 you can get a 3850 256MB
£120 will get you a 8800 GT 256MB
£130 will get you a 3870 512MB
£170 will get you a 8800 GT 512MB

Personally I would go for the 3870 over the 8800 GT 256MB as at higher resolutions the lack of memory may be an issue, but if your willing to spend the extra and its all about performance then the 8800 GT 512MB is the better card for game playing.

Its not on a par with the 2900.
The 3870 is a great card.
The 2900 is:
very hot
noisy
poor value for money.

[fraps]

I would only pay about 80 for a 2900pro 512