HIS RADEON HD 2900 PRO 512MB

A much cheaper and a tad slower 2900XT

Almost two years have passed since ATI lost its image of the leading GPU manufacturer. Then the company started to lose the market and to experience financial problems. It all resulted in a merger with AMD, almost all top managers of the former ATI Technologies were fired from AMD.

That's natural and not natural at the same time. What a shame! The trademark is lost because of talentless management of the former ATI. Yes, the problems started with the launch of the X1xxx family in October 2005. While Mid-End solutions were quite acceptable (still, there has been a shortage of these cards in the market), top products were plain weak. But the cards got very hot during operation and suffered from other problems. NVIDIA easily launched overclocked modifications of its Hi-End cards to counter ATI products that had been designed with so many difficulties. The age of ATI came to an inglorious end, and nervous reactions of ATI Russia to any criticism about RADEON X1xxx were a solid proof of that fact. But if they had known how much time was left for their office to remain independent... It's history now.

We sometimes receive e-mails, where our readers wonder why we constantly criticize AMD, while NVIDIA seems to get more favorable treatment. First of all, only very inattentive readers can write that - our articles in the beginning of 2007 were critical of the Californian company and their terrible drivers. Secondly, if the HD family from AMD have real problems, why should we hush it up? And if the company carries on with its ugly policy of no normal planning (when there are occasionally no new products on the shelves, and partners are groaning from the lack of GPUs or cards) even as part of AMD, should we praise it? - We don't think so.

And so on. We'll not repeat all our critical remarks about the recent AMD products. But they are no lies. We criticize real blunders.

But clouds split and the sun shone on a new product (even if not for long). But we are surprised to see the RADEON HD 2900 XT modification at $249 instead of $449. That is, the GPU clock was reduced by 150 MHz, memory is left almost untouched. And voila - meet the 2900 PRO, which is cheaper by $200. It's clear even without tests that such a product can be extremely popular! However, the life cycle of this card is limited - just a couple of months, until the RV670 is released. And it won't bring much profits, as its prime costs are similar to those of the 2900 XT. This GPU is not cut down, only its clock rate is reduced by 150 MHz. I suspect that it's reduced artificially. That is these cards are probably based on ready 2900 XT cards, not on R600 rejects. Their clock rate is reduced on purpose. Our sample worked well at the clock of the 2900 XT. So owners of the 2900 PRO might have a chance to get the 2900 XT (they should just try to increase the clock rate manually or flash the BIOS version from the 2900 XT). But they'll get it for $250.

I think there is no point in repeating that all these cards are manufactured at third-party plants by AMD's orders. So partners, including HIS, just buy ready 2900-series cards from AMD. In fact, vendors only add entourage: bundle, package, labels, and warranty for dealers or distributors.

Let's examine this card.

Graphics card

HIS RADEON HD 2900 PRO 512MB PCI-E

GPU: RADEON HD 2900 PRO (R600) Interface: PCI-Express x16 GPU frequencies (ROPs/Shaders): 600/600 MHz (nominal - 600/600 MHz) Memory frequencies (physical (effective)): 800 (1600) MHz (nominal - 800 (1600) MHz) Memory bus width: 512bit Vertex processors: - Pixel processors: - Unified processors: 320 Texture processors: 16 ROPs: 16 Dimensions: 220x100x32 mm (the last figure is the maximum thickness of a graphics card). PCB color: red RAMDACs/TDMS: integrated into GPU Output connectors: 2xDVI (Dual-Link), TV-Out. VIVO: RAGE Theater 200 TV-out: integrated into GPU. Multi-GPU operation: CrossFire (Hardware).

HIS RADEON HD 2900 PRO 512MB PCI-E
The graphics card has 512 MB of GDDR4 SDRAM allocated in sixteen chips on the front and back sides of the PCB. Samsung memory chips (GDDR4). 1.0 ns memory access time, which corresponds to 1000 (2000) MHz.

Comparison with the reference design, front view
HIS RADEON HD 2900 PRO 512MB PCI-E	Reference card ATI RADEON HD 2900 XT

Comparison with the reference design, back view
HIS RADEON HD 2900 PRO 512MB PCI-E	Reference card ATI RADEON HD 2900 XT

It's clear at first sight that it's a copy of the reference 2900 XT. However, we shouldn't expect anything else judging by the above said.

Remember that the R600 requires a much more complex PCB compared to the R580 (X1950 XTX) because of the twice as wide memory bus. Nevertheless, the manufacturer tried to keep the card no longer than previous solutions and to equip it with a proper cooler (with normal dimensions).

Owing to very high power consumption (above 200 Watt), the card has two power connectors. One of them is an 8-pin connector (PCI-E 2.0) instead of the usual 6-pin one. There are presently no adapters for this connector. That's OK, because a usual 6-pin cable from a PSU can be plugged into this connector, and the remaining two pins are responsible for unlocking overclocking (the driver determines whether these pins are powered, if no - it blocks any attempts to raise frequencies).

The card has TV-Out with an original connector. You will need a special adapter (usually bundled) to output video to a TV-set via S-Video or RCA. You can read about TV-Out here. We should also note that all top cards from ATI are traditionally equipped with VIVO (including Video In to convert analog video to digital form). This function is based on RAGE Theater 200 here instead of the traditional Theater.

We should mention sterling HDMI support. The card is equipped with its own audio codec, which signals go to DVI. So the sterling video-audio signal goes through a special bundled DVI-to-HDMI adapter to an HDMI receiver.

We can see that the card is equipped with a couple of DVI connectors. Dual link DVI allows resolutions above 1600x1200 via the digital interface. Analog monitors with d-Sub (VGA) interface are connected with special DVI-to-d-Sub adapters. Maximum resolutions and frequencies:

• 240 Hz Max Refresh Rate
• 2048 x 1536 x 32bit @ 85Hz Max - analog interface
• 2560 x 1600 @ 60Hz Max - digital interface