ATI Radeon X800 XT (R420): Extreme force
Test configuration
Test software:
Synthetic benchmark:
- 3DMark2003 v340;
- Codecreatures v1.0.0 (a DirectX 8.1 application, shaders on, Hardware T&L);
- AquaMark 3 (DirectX 9.0, Vertex Shaders 1.1/1.4/2.0, Pixel Shaders 1.1/1.4/2.0, Hardware T&L, AquaMark3 Triscore mode);
Gaming applications:
- Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo (Direct3D, Hardware T&L, vertex shaders, Dot3, cube texturing.);
- Gun Metal Benchmark 2 v1.20s (a DirectX 9.0 benchmark, Vertex Shaders 2.0, Pixel Shaders 1.1, Hardware T&L);
- X2: The Threat Demo (Direct3D, multitexturing, Dot3, running in the benchmark mode embedded in the demo version);
- Final Fantasy XI Official Benchmark 2 (a benchmark for assessing the performance in the future game Final Fantasy XI. The developers haven't presented any data on the gaming engine);
- Core Design / Eidos Interactive Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness v49 (DirectX 9.0, Vertex Shaders 2.0, Pixel Shaders 2.0);
- Valve Software/Vivendi Universal Games Half-life 2 leaked beta (DirectX 9.0, Vertex Shaders 2.0, Pixel Shaders 2.0);
- GSC GameWorld / Russobit Ì FireStarter (DirectX 8.1/DirectX 9.0, pixel and vertex shaders, particle system, dynamic lights, projected textures);
- Crytek / UbiSoft FarCry (DirectX 9.0, Pixel Shaders 2.0, quality settings set to the maximum, our own "3Dnews001" demo was used).
In the tests, the following three Hi-End ATI video cards of the past generation took part: Radeon 9700Pro/9800Pro/9800XT. NVIDIA's ranking was marked for the FX5990Ultra video card (dotted line on the graphs).
Purpose of the tests: reveal the performance difference between ATI video cards of different generations.
3DMark 2003 Pro ver340
Multitexturing and version 2.0 pixel shader processing speed honestly rose by 2.5 times. All the remaining (except Wing Of Fury, the oldest of all the tests) - by two times. It is impossible to imagine the release of a Pentium processor which would demonstrate such a performance boost like that. The video industry is still able working miracles!
3DMark 2001SE
Fans of this benchmark will be disappointed - all the juices have been squeezed out already.
Codecreatures
First off, the general score with the standard image quality (AA and AF disabled):
In this benchmark, version 1.1 pixel shaders were used and NVIDIA cards have always felt more comfortable at that. The boost for Radeon X800 XT is of course not a two-fold as compared to Radeon 9800XT, but is anyway really impressive.
Here is the alignment of forces for resolutions up to the super-high:
Codecreatures 4xAA / 8xAF
Now switch on the quality settings and enjoy the result:
That's really incredible! The rise is more than two-fold (even two and a half times). Radeon X800XT demonstrates a fantastic leap forward leaving all the previous generation cards well behind! The 'strength margin' (we use this term to denote the difference in performance drop under standard settings and with the aggressive image quality settings enabled) is beyond competition.
Here is the alignment of forces for various resolutions:
9700Ultra failed to stand the torture at 2028x1536 and honestly gave way - just ran out of memory.
Aquamark 3
This is the last "conditionally synthetic" benchmark. Anyway, it is made in a real game engine..
At that, we see a substantial boost, albeit not as impressive as in Codecreatures.
Moving on to real-world games...
 |
Top Stories: |
 |
 |
|
MoBo:
| |
|
|
VGA Card:
|
|
|
|
CPU & Memory:
|
|
