Vital stats and temps
Vital stats
| Graphics Cards | ASUS EAH2900XT 512MiB | ASUS EN8800ULTRA 768MiB |
|---|---|---|
| GPU clock | 743MHz | 612MHz |
| Shader clock | 743MHz | 1500MHz |
| Memory clock (effective) | 1656MHz | 2160MHz |
| Memory interface, size, and implementation | 512-bit, 512MiB, GDDR3 | 384-bit, 768MiB, GDDR3 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 105.60GB/sec | 103.68GB/sec |
| Manufacturing process | TSMC, 80nm (80HS) | TSMC, 90nm (90HS) |
| Transistor Count | 700M+ | 681M |
| DirectX Shader Model | 4.0 | |
| Vertex Shading* | 320 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD (Unified) | 128 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD+MUL dual-issue (Unified) |
| Fragment Shading* | 320 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD (Unified) | 128 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD+MUL dual-issue (Unified) |
| Geometry Shading* | 320 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD (Unified) | 128 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD+MUL dual-issue (Unified) |
| Compute rate | 475GFLOPs/s | 576GFLOPs/s |
| ROPs and AA | 16 Up to 24x CFAA |
24 Up to 16x CSAA |
| Pixel fillrate | 11.872GPixels/s | 14.680GPixels/s |
| DVI outputs | Dual-link DVI | |
| HDCP support | Yes; dual-link DVI | Yes; single-link DVI |
| Price | £250 | £420 |
* - the stream processors can be allocated to work on pixel, vertex or geometry data, so the total is 320/128.
A few things to note here, folks. Adherence to DX10 dictates that both GPUs utilise a unified shading architecture. NVIDIA splits up the shader clock and raises the frequency. AMD, on the other hand, uses a base clock speed of 743MHz for its shaders.
Both architectures are forward-looking and have oodles of compute power. What's clear is that the EN8800ULTRA, priced at around £420, costs around 70 per cent more than the EAH2900XT. The question is whether its faster speed - which isn't particularly obvious when viewing the vital stats - can offset the additional expense.
Temperatures
| Graphics cards | ASUS EAH2900XT 512MiB | ASUS EN8800ULTRA 768MiB |
|---|---|---|
| Ambient temps | 21.5°C | 20.5°C |
| Idle temps | 59°C | 59°C |
| Load temps | 71°C | 80°C |
| Ambient-Load difference (lower is better) | 49.5°C | 59.5°C |
ASUS' EN8800ULTRA runs a little hotter than its Radeon counterpart but, crucially, thanks to an excellent heatsink design, is quieter when subject to prolonged 3D load.
