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."