ATI's X1000 Series: Extended Performance Testing
by Derek Wilson on October 7, 2005 10:15 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Performance
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is a beautiful stealth action game that makes excellent use of light and shadow. Their extended SM3.0 features are beautiful, but we tested without SM3.0 enabled for consistency. These numbers are based on the lighthouse demo that comes with the games, and we used the benchmark scripts created by Reverend of Beyond3d.
This is one of the few games that shows the X1800 XT with a clear lead over the 7800 GTX with no AA enabled. The 7800 GT still bests the X1800 XL, and the X1600 again performs on par with a much cheaper part in the 6600 GT.
Turning on AA serves to increase the X1800 XT performance advantage considerably. The future high end part from ATI will allow Splinter Cell 3 to run at 2048x1536 with 4xAA and 8xAF at a playable frame rate. The X1800XL competes directly with the 7800 GTX in this benchmark with the 7800 GT lagging behind. In this way, Splinter Cell shows us something almost the reverse of Doom 3 and Chronicles of Riddick performance.
While the X1600 XT does post better numbers than the 6600 GT, we will be more interested in how the cheaper X1600 parts will hold up against the very popular NVIDIA mid-range part.
Once again, we see the X1800 XT handle the impact of antialiasing better than all the other parts. The X1800 XL also adapts better than the NVIDIA cards. While the 6800 GT keeps up with the X1600 XT in terms of AA impact, the 6600 GT doesn't do quite as well.
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is a beautiful stealth action game that makes excellent use of light and shadow. Their extended SM3.0 features are beautiful, but we tested without SM3.0 enabled for consistency. These numbers are based on the lighthouse demo that comes with the games, and we used the benchmark scripts created by Reverend of Beyond3d.
This is one of the few games that shows the X1800 XT with a clear lead over the 7800 GTX with no AA enabled. The 7800 GT still bests the X1800 XL, and the X1600 again performs on par with a much cheaper part in the 6600 GT.
Turning on AA serves to increase the X1800 XT performance advantage considerably. The future high end part from ATI will allow Splinter Cell 3 to run at 2048x1536 with 4xAA and 8xAF at a playable frame rate. The X1800XL competes directly with the 7800 GTX in this benchmark with the 7800 GT lagging behind. In this way, Splinter Cell shows us something almost the reverse of Doom 3 and Chronicles of Riddick performance.
While the X1600 XT does post better numbers than the 6600 GT, we will be more interested in how the cheaper X1600 parts will hold up against the very popular NVIDIA mid-range part.
Once again, we see the X1800 XT handle the impact of antialiasing better than all the other parts. The X1800 XL also adapts better than the NVIDIA cards. While the 6800 GT keeps up with the X1600 XT in terms of AA impact, the 6600 GT doesn't do quite as well.
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flexy - Saturday, October 8, 2005 - link
there is an interesting article (in german, sorry) where they compare the old cards' (X850) performance with the new adaptive antialiasing turned on.You can see that some games do pretty well with minor performance loss - eg. but FarCry gets a HUGE hit by enabling adaptive antialiasing. I also did some tests on my own (X850XT) and the hit is as big as 50% in FarCry benchmark.
My question would be how the new cards handle this and how big the performance hit would be eg. with a 1800XL/XT in certain engines.
Also, i think the 6xAntiAliasing modi are a bit under-represented - i for my part am used to play HL2 1280x1024 with 6xAA and 16xAF....and i am not that interested in 4xAA 8xAF since i ASSUME that a high-end card like the 1800XT should be pre-destined to run the higher AA/AF modi PLUS adaptive antialiasing. Maybe also please note that a big number (?) of people might not even be able to run monster resolutions like 2048x but MIGHT certainly be interested in resolutions upto 1600x but with max AA/AF/adaptive modi on.
flexy - Saturday, October 8, 2005 - link
here the link, sorry forgot above:http://www.3dcenter.org/artikel/2005/10-04_b.php">http://www.3dcenter.org/artikel/2005/10-04_b.php
cryptonomicon - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
I want to see ATI release a product that takes back the performance crown.. only then they can sit on the high price premiums for their cards again because they own the highest performance. Until then they can get busy slashing prices...ElFenix - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
you guys fail to realize that, at retail prices for nvidia cards, the ati cards slot quite nicely. best buy and compusa still sell 6600GTs for nearly $200, and 6800GTs for nearly $300. so, comparing those prices to the ATi prices reveals that ATi is quite price competitive. of course, no one who reads this site buys at retail (unless it's a hot deal), but there isn't any reason to think that ATi cards can't come down in price as quickly as the nvidia cards.bob661 - Saturday, October 8, 2005 - link
Ummm yeah. We, the geeks, don't shop at CompUSA or Best Buy. Therefore, ATI's new hardware is NOT price competitive. Also, if Nvidia 6600GT's are $200 and 6800GT's are $300 at said stores, how would the ATI cards magically not get a price gouging too?ElFenix - Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - link
did you even bother to read my post before shooting off your idiotic post? i said that no one here shops at best buy. and you don't know if ati's hardware is price competitive or not because, at the moment, you can't buy it. once it gets out into the channel maybe newegg and zzf and monarch will stock them at competitive prices as the nvidia parts. maybe not. but you don't know that yet, so making blanket statements like 'ati is not price competitive' is stupid!i'm not really sure what this 'price gouging' is you're referring to, but because you've already demonstrated your inability to comprehend the english language i'm going to assume its because you think best buy and compusa are selling for more than msrp. they're not. they are selling at msrp. and at best buy and compusa ati cards will sell at msrp. and ati cards at msrp are quite price competitive with nvidia cards at msrp.
shabby - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
Lets see some hdr+aa benchmarks.DerekWilson - Saturday, October 8, 2005 - link
There are no games where we can test this feature yetTinyTeeth - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
You make up for the flaws of the last review and show that you still are the best hardware site out there. Keep it up!jojo4u - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
The graphs give a nice overview, good work.Please consider to include the information what AF level was used into the graphs. This is something all recent reviews here have have been lacking.
About the image quality: The shimmering was greatly reduced with the fixed driver (78.03). So it's down to NV40 level now. But 3dCenter.de[1] and Computerbase.de conclude that only enabling "high quality" in the Forceware brings comparable image quality to "A.I. low". Perhaps you find the time to explore this issue in the image quality tests.
[1] http://www.3dcenter.de/artikel/g70_flimmern/index_...">http://www.3dcenter.de/artikel/g70_flimmern/index_...
This article is about the unfixed quality. But to judge the G70 today, have a look at the 6800U videos.
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=1549&am...">http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=1549&am...
This article shows the performance hit of enabling "high quality"