Unreal Tournament 3 Beta Demo: Top to Bottom GPU Analysis
by Derek Wilson on October 18, 2007 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Introduction
We've already looked quite a bit at Unreal Tournament 3, but, as promised, here is our low end and mainstream GPU analysis of the beta version of the demo for Unreal Tournament 3. Certainly not a string of words that instills confidence in how well these numbers will represent final game play, but it's the best we've got right now for the best looking UE3 game to date.
Our first look at high end GPU performance showed that AMD's Radeon HD 2900 XT was able to best NVIDIA's flagship hardware in a number of cases and remained very competitive even at high resolutions. Will this trend hold for the rest of the lineup, or is the 2900 XT just well suited to UT3?
We'll find out when we put our hardware to the test. First we will look at low end GPU, then the mainstream parts. Finally, we will bring it all together and look at performance across the board. Before we get to the numbers, here is the hardware we used for these numbers.
Rather than run all three flybys as we did for the high end hardware, based on the fact that scaling was fairly consistent across maps, we decided only to test the most taxing of the maps: the Suspense CTF map. We will look a resolutions ranging from 800x600 up to 2560x1600. Sit back and enjoy the ride.
We've already looked quite a bit at Unreal Tournament 3, but, as promised, here is our low end and mainstream GPU analysis of the beta version of the demo for Unreal Tournament 3. Certainly not a string of words that instills confidence in how well these numbers will represent final game play, but it's the best we've got right now for the best looking UE3 game to date.
Our first look at high end GPU performance showed that AMD's Radeon HD 2900 XT was able to best NVIDIA's flagship hardware in a number of cases and remained very competitive even at high resolutions. Will this trend hold for the rest of the lineup, or is the 2900 XT just well suited to UT3?
We'll find out when we put our hardware to the test. First we will look at low end GPU, then the mainstream parts. Finally, we will bring it all together and look at performance across the board. Before we get to the numbers, here is the hardware we used for these numbers.
| Test Setup | |
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 |
| Motherboard | NVIDIA 680i SLI |
| Video Cards | AMD Radeon HD 2900 XT AMD Radeon HD 2600 XT AMD Radeon HD 2600 Pro AMD Radeon HD 2400 XT AMD Radeon X1950 XTX AMD Radeon X1950 Pro AMD Radeon X1650 XT NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT |
| Video Drivers | AMD: Catalyst 7.10 NVIDIA: 163.75 |
| Hard Drive | Seagate 7200.9 300GB 8MB 7200RPM |
| RAM | 2x1GB Corsair XMS2 PC2-6400 4-4-4-12 |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit |
Rather than run all three flybys as we did for the high end hardware, based on the fact that scaling was fairly consistent across maps, we decided only to test the most taxing of the maps: the Suspense CTF map. We will look a resolutions ranging from 800x600 up to 2560x1600. Sit back and enjoy the ride.
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TSIMonster - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
Looks like UT3 is going to scale well with lower end hardware. Can't wait to see some tests with AA and AF.blckgrffn - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
GDDR3 or 4?Thanks,
Nat
Makaveli - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
"The thing that most suprises me is the 2600XT beating 1950pro"The 2600XT wins by 1 fps at 1280
Then X1950pro wins by 1 fps at 1600
I hardly call that a beating more like a tie. Generally the 1950pro is faster from most other games and benchmarks i've seen.
I want to see how the numbers shape up once the final game is out
ChronoReverse - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
Honestly that's the way it SHOULD be. A midrange card of this generation ought to at LEAST tie a high-mid card from the previous generation.xsilver - Friday, October 19, 2007 - link
Whats odd to note is how the older gen cards are finally starting to struggle compared to mid range new gen cards.What wasnt shown on the recent HL ep2 tests is that the 7900gtx is no longer holding down the 8600gts and 2600xt. In older games - it would be certain that the older gen card would beat the newer mid range card.
It will be interesting to see what the range mid spec'd cards coming out this christmas can do to the 8800gts and 2900pro
poohbear - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
great to see my x1900xt is still kicking as$ and chewing bubble gum. it`d be great to see a DX9 and DX10 comparison in the final release if possible. cheers.ratbert1 - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
The only price/performance advantage I see is the hd2600xt. With the maturation of ATI's drivers, especially for Crossfire, you can get two of these for less than 2 bills. Of course, then you need a Crossfire board, and then its 16x/4x unless you go Asus and you can get 8x/8x.
DerekWilson - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
you can get crossfire boards with 2x x16 slots.Regs - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
High Quality = 8x AF and no AA support?DerekWilson - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
high quality = the highest quality available in the beta demo... so you're kind of right. it's also high world geometry. And we used the -compatscale=5 command line option to make sure everything was run with the same options and highest graphical quality.