It looks like AMD has hit another obstacle with its ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT. The
ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT lacks AMD's highly touted UVD hardware video processing
engine, a feature highlighted in roadmaps. Not only that, AMD continues to tout
its entire ATI Radeon HD 2000-series as having UVD, when in fact it is only the
65nm HD 2600 and HD 2400 series that possess the hardware decoding capabilities.
Scott
Wasson from TechReport came across the issue while testing the UVD features,
stating, "True to my word, I set out yesterday to test HD video decode
acceleration on a Radeon HD 2900 XT using an HD DVD drive and a version of
PowerDVD supplied by AMD for such purposes." He continues, "To my surprise, CPU
utilization during playback on our Core 2 Extreme X6800 test system ran between
40 and 50%, well above what one would expect from a solution with full HD video
decode acceleration." Wasson proceeded to contact AMD with his results. AMD
confirmed the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT does indeed lack UVD hardware processing
capabilities on the GPU and offers video decoding performance on par with the
last generation ATI Radeon X1000-series, according to Dave Bauman, technical
marketing manager, ATI. AMD advertises the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT features Avivo
HD support, despite the lack of UVD. AMD's Avivo HD page lists UVD as part of
the Avivo HD feature set.
Update: According to
DailyTech, "no less than four" of AMD's board partners advertise UVD support
on the box art for their Radeon HD 2900 XT cards. Online retailers, too, seem to
have been fooled by AMD's none-too-clear statements regarding UVD support. As
The Inquirer
reports, online stores like Amazon advertise UVD support in their Radeon HD 2900
XT listings. For instance, Amazon's
listing for an HIS model asserts, "HIS Radeon HD 2900XT enables a one-plug
big-screen HD gaming experience with ATI Avivo HD video and display technology
with advance high definition features including UVD technology."