Review: HIS Radeon HD 2900 Pro 512MiB Limited Edition

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It was clearly obvious that AMD had a large gap in its DX10 graphics-card line-up before the introduction of the Radeon HD 2900 Pro 512MiB SKU. Rather than make additional chops to the architecture in any meaningful and deleterious way, which would incur greater cost and a loss of performance, AMD has released what can only be termed as a product imbued with common sense (something that has been somewhat lacking from the Austin outfit recently).

GPUs that don't quite yield at the XT's 743MHz are harvested and turned in to Pros operating at a more staid 600MHz, it seems. Memory bandwidth is left pretty much the same and, as expected, the cooling is unaltered from the R600's, as well. The 10-20 per cent reduction in performance is compensated by a 25 per cent reduction in street price, making the £175 Radeon HD 2900 Pro 512MiB squarely compete against NVIDIA's volume-selling GeForce 8800 GTS 320. We're in no doubt that enthusiasts will test the overclocking potential of Pros and flash them to an XT's BIOS, headroom permitting.

Which £175 card is better. then? One could argue that NVIDIA's card has the slightly better performance (in our older games) but AMD's has a more-comprehensive feature-set - it's another case of swings and roundabouts. Whichever one you decide to buy - and there is no bad choice here - spending £175 buys you more technology than ever before, and, in our opinion, makes any cut-down card positioned at £150 (GeForce 8600 GTS OC) seem poor in comparison.

The HIS Radeon HD 2900 Pro 512MiB Limited Edition is a full-fat performance card with all the trimmings of R600's architecture. The SKU should help bolster Radeon HD 2900 sales and provides the consumer with more choice than ever before - it's just a shame that it wasn't released six months ago.

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HIS Radeon HD 2900 Pro 512iB Limited Edition

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