Currently the ASUS Radeon HD 2900XT is selling for around $450 US, which is not quite the projected $400 US that AMD set for the card. On the other hand, the ASUS GeForce 8800 GTX is currently retailing for $580 US, which still makes it a much more expensive option. Recently we pitched the Radeon HD 2900XT against the GeForce 8800 GTS (640MB) graphics card and while the Radeon was consistently faster, it does cost a little more. Actually, at the time we were assuming that the ASUS Radeon HD 2900XT would go on sale for $400 US, but the price has been set 12.5% higher than this.

This means while the Radeon HD 2900XT is a better performer, the GeForce 8800 GTS (640MB) is probably a better value option, as the ASUS version can be had for just $370 US. This means at $450 US the ASUS Radeon HD 2900XT is a bit of a half way option between the GTS and GTX cards. Today using the very latest official AMD and Nvidia drivers, we are going to compare all three cards while concentrating primarily on the Radeon HD 2900XT vs. GeForce 8800 GTX battle.

Measuring the true performance of the Radeon HD 2900XT is difficult and there seems to be no real patterns emerging. While one game can place the Radeon HD 2900XT just in front of the GeForce 8800 GTS (640MB), the next can see the Radeon HD 2900XT smashing the GTS, placing it right behind the GTX. Then the next game can show the Radeon HD 2900XT defeating both the GTS and GTX cards, so how do you pick a real winner?

Consistency is going to be the key here and hopefully through future driver releases AMD can start to find some consistent performance with the new Radeon HD 2900XT. The GeForce 8800 GTX drivers are by no means flawless, but this product has had over 6 months now to iron out the bugs and for the most part Nvidia has done this. This makes life much easier for the Nvidia driver team, as their flagship product is well established and they can focus a lot of their energy on supporting upcoming games.

The GeForce 8 series as a whole is very consistent when it comes to delivering performance and there are really no games that the GeForce 8800 GTX fails to deliver in. Ideally this is what a user desires when purchasing such an expensive product. Of course there are also other issues to consider, such as power consumption, efficiency and thermal output. These are all again issues that the GeForce 8 series deals rather well with, particularly when compared to the new Radeon HD 2900XT.

Often when reviewing a product such as the Radeon HD 2900XT we like to look to the future and I have noticed this is something almost all reviewers do. When working in the computer industry looking to the future is important, but often I think we speculate a little too much about the future of certain products. Therefore in today’s article we are going to focus more on the present! How does the Radeon HD 2900XT stack up against the GeForce 8800 GTX right now? Which is the better buy and if you were buying now, which should you buy? These are all questions we shall endeavour to answer by the end of this article...