ATI's X1000 Series: Extended Performance Testing
by Derek Wilson on October 7, 2005 10:15 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Far Cry Performance
Crytek has done an excellent job keeping up with the times. As new technologies come out, it seems like they do their research into how to use them on their production game. Incorporating SM3.0 code, geometry instancing, HDR, and the like into their last patch adds value to their game, gives us a platform with which to test the current incarnation of their engine, and gives potential game engine customers a look at what they could be getting in a shipping product. We are already hearing about another patch that will further extend the impact of HDR on the game, among other things. For these tests, we crank the graphics quality settings up to very high (ultra high for water) and let the chips fall where they may. The demo that we used for this test was the built-in regulator demo.
These tests show the top end ATI and NVIDIA cards running neck and neck. The 7800 GT leads the X1800 XL in performance (which is on par with the 6800 GT in the tests that overlap). The X1600 XT is able to perform better than the 6600 GT, but we should hope to see that from a card that costs over 50% more if MSRP is anywhere near street price. Again, the X1300 shouldn't be played at over 1024x768 unless the settings are dropped.
Enabling AA gives the advantage to the X1800 XT while the X1800 XL still lags behind the 7800 GT. The X1600 XT performs much better than the 6600 GT (which we wouldn't recommend running with AA).
Once again, the X1800 XT handles the impact of AA better than any other card. The added memory bandwidth is likely the reason why we keep seeing such good handling of AA. The 7800 GT and 7800 GTX both handle AA almost as well as the X1800 XL (and finally over-take the new ATI part at 2048x1536).
Crytek has done an excellent job keeping up with the times. As new technologies come out, it seems like they do their research into how to use them on their production game. Incorporating SM3.0 code, geometry instancing, HDR, and the like into their last patch adds value to their game, gives us a platform with which to test the current incarnation of their engine, and gives potential game engine customers a look at what they could be getting in a shipping product. We are already hearing about another patch that will further extend the impact of HDR on the game, among other things. For these tests, we crank the graphics quality settings up to very high (ultra high for water) and let the chips fall where they may. The demo that we used for this test was the built-in regulator demo.
These tests show the top end ATI and NVIDIA cards running neck and neck. The 7800 GT leads the X1800 XL in performance (which is on par with the 6800 GT in the tests that overlap). The X1600 XT is able to perform better than the 6600 GT, but we should hope to see that from a card that costs over 50% more if MSRP is anywhere near street price. Again, the X1300 shouldn't be played at over 1024x768 unless the settings are dropped.
Enabling AA gives the advantage to the X1800 XT while the X1800 XL still lags behind the 7800 GT. The X1600 XT performs much better than the 6600 GT (which we wouldn't recommend running with AA).
Once again, the X1800 XT handles the impact of AA better than any other card. The added memory bandwidth is likely the reason why we keep seeing such good handling of AA. The 7800 GT and 7800 GTX both handle AA almost as well as the X1800 XL (and finally over-take the new ATI part at 2048x1536).
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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"