High End and Future Ultra High End Performance

On the high end, the X1800 XL is a solid competitor to the 7800 GT. In some cases, the X1800 XL is able to compete with the 7800 GTX, but not enough to warrant pricing on the same level. The X1800 XT will not be out for at least a month, and while it does offer good competition to the 7800 GTX, we do want to caution everyone to wait until the part is shipping before embracing it.

Once again, Doom 3 shows NVIDIA to lead the way in performance, this time even with 4xAA and 8xAF enabled. Even the 6800 GT is able to best ATI's new flagship, the X1800 XT.

High-End Card Comparison - Doom 3


The X1800 XT falls just short of the NVIDIA 7800 GTX at 1600x1200 4xAA/8xAF with a score of 59.5 fps. The X1800 XL and XT are good competitors to the 7800 GTX and 7800 GT parts at this resolution under Day of Defeat. We run with all the quality options on the highest setting (including reflect all).

High-End Card Comparison - Day of Defeat


The X1000 line tend to do very well in Far Cry, and the high end parts are no exception. This time around, the defeat isn't that staggering, as the 7800 series seems to keep up well.

High-End Card Comparison - Far Cry


With Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, the X1800 XT dominates. The X1800 XL is competive with the 7800 GTX in this benchmark, which is appropriate based on expected pricing.

High-End Card Comparison - Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory


Looking at the ultra high end, Doom 3 once again favors the NVIDIA line of parts.

High-End Card Comparison - Doom 3


High-End Card Comparison - Day of Defeat


High-End Card Comparison - Far Cry


High-End Card Comparison - Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory


High-End Card Comparison - Everquest II


Mid-Range Performance Final Words
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  • DigitalFreak - Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - link

    CPU limited?
  • DRavisher - Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - link

    Usually you are not CPU limited at such high resolutions. Though it would of course be possible. But my comment still stands; the XT is not showing any good scaling at higher resolutions in those benchmarks, rather the opposite.
  • raj14 - Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - link

    i am not surprised, with 16 Pixel pipelins everybody knowed ATi was going to loose, ATi has Always sucked and continues to do so. even in Cross-FIre radeon 1800XTs won't come near SLied 7800GTXs. hats off to NVIDIA and thumbs down to ATi.
  • utube545 - Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - link

    Fuck off you dumbass
  • mlittl3 - Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - link

    Excerpt from extremetech.com review of the X1800:

    "The Radeon X1800 XT fares much better against the GeForce 7800 GTX. It is faster, on the whole, whether you apply AA and AF or not (though the difference is tiny without them). The only reason the 7800 GTX remains less than 20% behind is because of the dominance of Nvidia in Doom 3. Without that game, ATI pulls even further ahead."

    "With 8 fewer pixel pipelines, it's impressive to see this difference in performance, even though the X1800 XT runs at a much higher clock speed. We question whether it can be attributed to all the improvements in the new architecture for the sake of per-pipeline efficiency, or if it has more to do with the 25% advantage in memory bandwidth."

    The 16 pipes vs. 24 pipes is not enough to draw a conclusion. At this site, the ATI cards wins with 16 pipes in most cases.
  • Griswold - Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - link

    quote:

    ATi has Always sucked and continues to do so


    I'm guessing you got your first PC last christmas.

  • LoneWolf15 - Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - link

    Too bad he didn't get his first Speak `n Spell last Christmas, it would have been a more useful gift.
  • mlittl3 - Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - link

    I don't understand how Anandtech can complain about no products at launch when they post live review articles when they aren't even remotely ready. I know you guys are doing it because you want to post the article when the other sites do but if it isn't ready, it isn't ready. Come on. You are doing the exact same thing as ATI's paper launches.

    You have graphs showing the X1800xl beating x1800xt. You say there is good scaling with AA enabled but you don't show the data without AA. You also only tested like 5 games. Where is the 3dmark benches? Where are all the other games?

    Anandtech review launch = ATI paper launch

    I'm going to another review site. This is abysmal.
  • mlittl3 - Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - link

    Oh and one other thing. The cards picked for each section: budget, midrange, highend seem randomly chosen. Why don't we have 9200, x300, 5200, 6200, x1300 in the low end? 9600, x600, 5600, 6600, x1600 in the mid range? And 9800, x800, 5900, 6800, x1800, 7800 in the high-end? If you can't go back two generations of cards, then show some of the derivatives of last generation at least (xl, xt, xt pe, pro, ultra, etc.). Everything is so scatter-brained here no one can tell what card is faster than what.

    Go to extremetech.com. They show the ATI cards winning in almost every single test and they also have 3dmark scores. ATI did a great job with 16 pipelines and gives almost 1.5x performance over x800 series and beats the 7800. Don't use this site to determine the winner. Go to multiple sites.
  • bob661 - Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - link

    So you only look for benchmarks that show what you want to see? Besides, I checked extremetech.com and ATI did NOT win all of the benchmarks there. 2 fps is not a win as you will NEVER be albe to tell the difference. Besides, how the hell is 2 fps or even 10 fps worth $100?


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