Performance in Synthetic Benchmarks

Futuremark 3DMark05

The ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro scores a mere 787 points less than the senior model, which is a smaller difference than in most of the gaming tests if expressed in percent. That was to be expected because 3DMark defaults to 1024x768 resolution without full-screen antialiasing, while these two cards only differ in the graphics core frequency.

The gap between the Radeon HD 2900 Pro and Radeon HD 2900 XT increases back to normal in the gaming tests. Compared with the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB, the ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro is 8-10% slower in the second test, which is not sensitive to the texture processors’ performance, but 30-40% slower in the first and third test.

Considering the results we got at the default settings, it is not the shader processors’ fault. The memory subsystem can’t be a problem either since it is superior to the memory subsystem of the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB. So, the new card is slower in the individual tests due to its low core frequency as well as to having only 16 TMUs and ROPs. The peculiarities of the VLIW architecture may have affected its results as well.