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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DonPMitchell - Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - link
I wish they had benchmarked Half Life2, which is sort of a standard thing to look at. I don't disagree with their final conclusions, but I can't help but wonder if HL2 spanked nVidia, and that made them chose another game. It would be more unbiased for them to stick to a more or less standard set of tests, and it would let use compare to prior tests as well.Larso - Monday, October 10, 2005 - link
First I would like to thank the AT crew for another excellent article! The graphs are very intuitive and easy to read.I think that one aspect is missing in about every of the X1000 articles I have found on the net: how does this new family of cards compare with the previous generation(s)? - For example, what middlerange card should I pickup as an upgrade for 9600XT, and how much improvement will I get??
Anybody stumbled over a review that compares these new cards with the previous generations??
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Another question, I selected the 9600XT back then because it can easily be passively cooled, now I wonder if any of the new cards can be silenced without turning the case into a bake owen?
MrJim - Sunday, October 9, 2005 - link
I dont understand why anandtech keeps on not testing games other than shooters with these high-end cards, like demanding flightsims(lock-on is very graphic intensive) and/or Pacific Fighters(not as GPU dependant as Lock-On). Also why no racing sims? We who play these do use filtering and FSAA alot or at least the 350 ones i know. Cheers!dimitrio - Saturday, October 8, 2005 - link
Some one said they like the way the graphs were done. I must say that I found it a little difficult to do comparisions, since you have to look back and forth to see what card each symbol represents. After you give up figuring that out, you try to look at the data below, but again, since it's not ordered "better to worse", it takes some time to figure out that data. Things got even more complicated with the "Lower is Better" graph.I aknowledge that it makes everything much cleaner, and with the number of benchmarks on this article, you would end up with dozens of graphs on several pages, and you can clearly sence the writers desire to improve the presentation with this new format, but sometimes things are better kept simple, and I still would like to see the many bar graphs, as they are much more intuitive and informative, to me at least.
photoguy99 - Saturday, October 8, 2005 - link
This article is a prime reason - editors listen, participate, improve.Tom's doesn't even link their articles directly to discussions! Why? Can't handle the feedback?
Glad to be here.
Spoelie - Saturday, October 8, 2005 - link
Isn't anyone else confuzzled about the x1600xt lackluster showing? I was really hoping to make it my next upgrade but it's current performance is only value-card worth. Just looking at the specs (12 SM3.0 pixel pipes @ 600mhz) would have it creaming the 6600GT (8 SM3.0 pixel pipes @ 500mhz), but it's barely even competing with it. This without considering other architectural advances and faster memory! My guess is that the ultimate fillrate is determined by the TMU's, and only having 4 makes this card a worthy 9600xt followup -which had 4 TMU's @ 500mhz- but nowhere near the mainstream card of this day and age. Extremely bad decision on ATI's part if this is it. I can't think of any other reason for this card to perform so pathetic. It would be nice to have it clarified if I'm completely missing the issue tho.taylore2003 - Saturday, October 8, 2005 - link
what Anandtech really need to to is benchmark the x1300pro on a non fx-55 system, ppl who buy that gpu will not have a top of the line PC, do it on a 3200+ amd not a fx-55, i mean come on, then ppl like me (damn all 16 y/o's) can see what kinda framefates we would be getting, the x1300pro should go vs the 6600 non gt! b/c we can see te x1800 is a great top of the line but ati's mid to low range gpus are not so hot, so lets see, a x1300pro vs a 6600 non gt! w/ a reasonable test setup.coldpower27 - Saturday, October 8, 2005 - link
From what I can see, it seems the 4 TMU's is a very crippling feature when compared to the 6600 GT, as that has 8 TMU's but 4 ROP's. It beats the 6600 GT yes, but not as much as we would be expecting.Compared to the 6600 GT
Pure Pixel Fillrate: X1600 XT 7.08 GP vs 6600 GT 4.0GP 77% More (ATI)
Output Pixel Fillrate: X1600 XT (4 TMU's)2.36 GP vs (4 ROP's) 2.0 GP 18% More (ATI)
Vertex Shader Fillrate: X1600 XT 737.5 MT's vs 6600 GT 375 MT's 96.6% More (ATI)
Memory Bandwidth: X1600 XT 1380MHZ 22.08 GB/s vs 6600 GT 1000MHZ 16 GB/s 38% More (ATI)
Add to that the 256MB vs 128MB comparison, and "more efficient Shader Model 3.0 implementation".
Battlefield with AA.
X1600 XT is ~ 50-60% Faster
Day of Defeat Source with AA
X1600 XT is ~ 33% Faster (Starting 12x9)
Doom 3 wtih AA(OpenGL)
X1600 XT is ~ 6600 GT
FarCry with AA
X1600 XT is ~ 37%-38% Faster (10x7 to 12x9)
Chronicles of Riddick No AA (OpenGL)
X1600 XT is ~ 6600 GT
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory with AA&AF
X1600 XT is ~ 12-18% Faster.
Everquest No AA
X1600 XT is 12-18% Faster.
In some cases it's just faster up to the difference in their Output Fillrates, Battlefield 2, FarCry & DOD:Source being it's biggest Wins, & the two OpenGL games as it's poorest showing.
Not much of this is a surprise however.
AtaStrumf - Saturday, October 8, 2005 - link
I was wondering something along those lines too, especialy why is X1800 XT so much faster than X1800 XL, and why is X1300 Pro not that much slower than X1600 XT?I don't get this new ring bus memory controler. Maybe it has something to do with that as well as TMUs and co. In the past we had 256-bit on the high end, 128-bit in the middle and 64-bit on the low end, now it seems as though all have _the same_ memory controler, which seem a bit odd to me, and what is also peculiar is the fact that all but the highest end X1800 XT have 256 MB of memory, while X1800 XT has 512 MB. Does more memory now somehow equal more "bits" -- bandwith?
haelduksf - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
I'm guessing you're actually having a "peek" at DOD:S performance ;)