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The Bundle

PowerColor went against the grain with the packaging of the HD 2900 Pro: the card doesn't come in an oversize box. This is a good thing, in my opinion. Sometimes, some cards come in these monstrorous boxes that hold nothing more a small box wouldn't --  besides a lot of empty space.

The graphic on the box is also quite nice. Usually, this isn't something I mention; but the artwork, (an armored woman holding a big sword), is eye-catching and well-done, so I thought it deserved noting.

The bundle in the box includes the following: one DVI to HDMI adapaters, one DVI to VGA adapater, two molex-to-PCI-e power connectors, a CrossFire bridge, a VIVO cable, a HDTV output cable, the ubiqutuous driver CD, a DVD filled with DVD authoring, burning and editing software (the "CyberLink DVD Solution"), and finally, a slim quick installation guide.

Overclocking

A big appeal of the HD 2900 Pro is the overclocking potential. Because the HD 2900 Pro looks like a HD 2900 XT, sounds like a HD 2900 XT, and seems to be, yes, an XT, many gamers undoubedtly wonder if it'll perform like a XT as well. Usually, Neoseeker does not overclock cards for our reviews -- but this is a special exception. The overclocking potential greatly interested us -- and we guess that'll interest you too.

Using the Catalyst Control Center's built-in Overdrive utility, we used the automated clock configuration feature to find a high stable clock.

Something happened.

The Catalyst Control Center just kept going and going. Long past the point that we thought the Powercolor HD 2900 Pro would have crashed or caught fire, the overclock finder just kept on going. The Powercolor HD 2900 Pro settled, finally, at a extremely impressive core clock speed of 858 MHz! That's right: eight hundred, and fifty-eight MHz.

858 is a 258 MHz overclock from the stock clock of 600 MHz.

858 is actually a bit over 100 MHz more than the a HD 2900 XT.

The memory faired very well also: we were able to 900 (1800) MHz, which is  a 100 MHz overclock.

This kind of overclock is just plain awesome to see -- there's just no other way to describe it. To be fair, at these settings, our series of benchmarks were not %100 stable - we had a few irregular crashes at high resolutions in X3, and Call of Juarez. Nonetheless, every other benchmark ran fine, so -- unless we recieved some sort of miracle card of the bunch -- we can expect that any HD 2900 Pro should have no problem running at 800 / 850, which is a still a terrific overclock.

A 800 / 850 overclock will deliver more performance than a stock-clocked HD 2900 XT, which retails for at least a $100 USD more.

Remember, if your planning to overclock, the HD 2900 Pro will require both a 8-pin and 6-pin power connector, and you'll want a power supply somewhere in the neighbourhood of 750 Watts to be safe.