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GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum EditionDate: 13/08/2004
By: Aleksey Burdyko
While ATI flagships are setting up new records in 3DMark's squeezing out more and more FPS, and users concerned by the idea of re-making ATI Radeon X800 Pro into X800 XT are soldering the few in numbers "Pro" specimen, we can see some restructuring in the product line of ATI chips. It was funny to hear of DirectX 9.0 integration into Low-End solutions, when ATI itself in presentations showed the "forgedness" of DirectX 9.0 in NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 chips with their tiny speed at DirectX 9.0 applications. That time we made our conclusions regarding the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 chip which was then opposed by ATI Radeon 9200. The operation speed in DirectX 9.0 was indeed tiny, which prevented the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 chip from taking a place of dignity under the sun. ATI then refused to introduce DirectX 9.0 into the low-end sector. Currently in ATI's roadmap we can see a chip like ATI Radeon 9550 intended to bring the niceties of DirectX 9.0 into the gloomy reign of Low-End. The "9550" index points to the evident kinship to the ATI Radeon 9600 chip which is confirmed in the reality: ATI Radeon 9550 is the screening of ATI Radeon 9600 at frequencies. We don't find ATI's decision on introducing DirectX 9.0 into the Low-end sector, because it won't cost anything to the company =). The rate of screening at frequency is very high - the company grudges dumping chips like these especially when it's all fine with the rendering pipelines. So, why not use them in less demanding solutions? People in offices also feel like looking at Far Cry out of the corner of the eyes - while the boss is away =). ATI does not wait for too long and produces the ATI Radeon 9550 chip that offers reduced frequencies (250 MHz versus 325 MHz in ATI Radeon 9600) with the same memory frequency (200 MHz (400 DDR)). At that, the distinctions from ATI Radeon 9600 are over and there starts an intensive search for competitors in NVIDIA roadmap for this ATI solution. NVIDIA was long ago able to introduce so many varied solutions to the Low-End sector that some are already getting confused in this variety for the low-end pricing sector of the market. They are variations of NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 aimed originally at the Low-End, as well as NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 frequency screenings degraded to the low-end sector - e.g. today's NVIDIA GeForce FX5600XT. Therefore, potentially ATI Radeon 9550 may come across the following rivals in the low-end pricing sector:
Of the similarly positioned ATI boards, we can distinguish only one board close to the performance and the prices recommended for ATI Radeon 9550:
It's just this board that from the time immemorial has been presented by ATI on the Low-End market, as well as stood for ATI's positions in that slow DirectX 9.0 is NO LONGER DirectX 9.0 and there is no need in it. Now ATI seems to adhere to a different opinion, and introduction of DirectX 9.0 into the low price segment is an evident confirmation. How successful is it going to be? Knowing the potentials of ATI cards at existing DirectX 9.0 applications, we are optimistic about the new ATI product. But let's take a closer look at it. Today we are reviewing the GeCube solution, a brand of growing popularity. Solutions marked as "Extreme" on the box normally promise something pleasant made by GeCube. Below we can get an idea of the current line of video cards by this brand: Radeon X800 series
Radeon X300 PCI Express
Radeon X600 PCI Express
Radeon X800 PCI Express
Radeon 9800XT
Radeon 9550
Radeon 9800
Radeon 9600 PRO
Radeon 9600XT
Radeon 9600
Radeon 9600SE
Radeon 9200
ALL-IN-WONDER
Although the main models are presented, the incomplete product line for some chips is annoying. In particular, there is no higher-end model on the base of ATI R420 chip - ATI Radeon X800 XT. ATI Radeon 9550 Chip It doesn't make sense expecting something out of the ordinary from the ATI Radeon 9550 chip. After announcement and established production of new solutions on the base of ATI Radeon X800, it is too costly to introduce any radical changes to the old solutions. But at some time NVIDIA decided to put forward something interesting in terms of the architecture for the Middle-end sector with its NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra. Today's card in question is a specimen screened for the frequencies, which was quite predictable.
Therefore, the differences between ATI Radeon 9600 and our today's specimen - ATI Radeon 9550 - are only in the clock speeds of the graphic processor. As compared to ATI Radeon 9600, the frequencies have been essentially reduced - 250 MHz in ATI Radeon 9550 versus 325 MHz in ATI Radeon 9600. The memory bus width is unchanged, however, as the sad experience shows, this parameter is "cured" very easily by board manufacturers. We wouldn't be surprised if soon we see boards on the base of the ATI Radeon 9550 chip with the memory bus width cut down to 64 bit in the price lists of computer companies.
The Board's FeaturesRetail bundle The box immediately catches the eye. All the captioning on it says there is some new gaming creation inside - the single-play version of Counter Strike - Counter Strike: Condition Zero. All the box is simply glittering with captions saying the full version of the game is shipped with the card. It is quite understandable for GeCube to make this part stand out - the game is new and will serve as an effective "attraction" for the buyers. What else interesting was inside the box?
 As we see, the package bundle is decent enough for a card supplied without VIVO. Such a retail bundle is especially nice to see for a low-end board. Design and layout First off, the PCB design of GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition is proprietary and has nothing to do with the PCB of boards based on the ATI Radeon 9600. The first distinction that catches your eye is the BGA memory chips on GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition and thus increased complexity of wiring of the whole board.     The card offers bright red PCB traditional for cards made on ATI chips, has 128 MB DDR with the 128-bit data transmission bus (4 memory chips are on the front and rear sides of the PCB). The video card offers the AGP 2x/4x/8x interface and a standard set of outputs: one DVI-I, one analogous, and one TV-OUT.   There is advanced BGA-packaging for memory chips made by Etrontech. The memory access time is 2.8 ns, which is equivalent to 300(600) MHz, but the memory runs at 250 MHz (500 MHz). The GPU operating speed is 400 MHz (versus the rated 250 MHz), which is set too high for an ATI Radeon chip. However strange it may seem, we get a video card having operating frequencies of ATI Radeon 9600 Pro chip. The difference is only in the memory operating frequency - it is understated by 50 MHz (100 MHz DDR) relative to ATI Radeon 9600 Pro: 500 MHz versus 600 MHz in the Pro version. That actually changes the card's positioning, but GeCube once again proves the honorable brand name which undermines all ATI's roadmaps =).  As we see, the ATI Radeon 9550 chip has its own marking.  The cooling system of the GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition video card is worth its advanced specifications. The cooling system appears to be a quite well thought out and effective solution which is now used to cool the most recent video cards on the base of ATI R420 chip. The system sucks in the air with a massive enough fan, then the air is fed through the fins of the fan, which provides heat-spreading off the graphic processor. The cooling system looks trendy and impart the board some kind of a Hi-End look =) despite its low-end character. There is no cooling for the memory chips. Although the memory chips on the front side of the board are closed with a lid of the cooling system, there is no heat-spreader on the reverse side of the PCB, which reduces to zero all the efforts of cooling the memory on the front side of the PCB (albeit no cooling is provided there - the chips are under the lid, with no radiators on).
TestsProceeding from the declared price at $100 and frequency data for the card in question made by GeCube (whose operating frequencies are by the way set too high relative to the canonical solution - ATI Radeon 9550), we chose video cards on the following chips:
The former is positioned by GeCube itself versus own solution on the manufacturer's web-site. At prices, these two solutions are very similar either. GeCube promises to sell its cards at about $100, which is on par with the price of today's solutions on the base of the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 chip. And of course we were curious to look at the performance of the board on the base of the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro chip, because the solution by GeCube offers frequencies close to that, whereas the price for boards built on ATI Radeon 9600 Pro chip are much higher than the $100 declared by GeCube 100. There was no sense taking a board on the base of the ATI Radeon 9600 chip for tests - it will be interesting to look at once we get boards on the base of the canonically true ATI Radeon 9550 - the roadmap by GeCube is kicky. If you see a GeCube box with the "Extreme" caption, you can surely expect something out of the ordinary inside.
That happened to the GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition. However, let's look at the results of tests to figure out what range the performance of GeCube offspring falls within for the low-end sector of the market. Test configuration:
Operating system, test software, drivers and settings Operating system:
We removed all the decorative "niceties" out of the Windows GUI and set the operating system to maximum performance. Disabled the Vsync forcedly via the drivers both in OpenGL and in Direct3D applications. The S3TC texture compression was also disabled. Test software:
2D QualityPrior to giving the estimate of image quality achieved by GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition video card, we again and again remind it that to date it is impossible to give more or less impartial estimate of this parameter for a series of video cards, since the 2D quality strongly depends on a particular specimen, and it is impossible to check all the cards for known reasons. The 2D quality also depends on the monitor and connection cable which in turn results in a lack of impartial estimation into the methodology of assessing that parameter. The 2D quality shown by the board at 1024x768x85Hz and 1280õ1024õ60Hz resolution can be characterized as superb. No noticeable deviations in the image quality were found. OverclockingThe video card was overclocked with the RivaTuner utility. The operation stability during overclocking was verified with Future Mark 3DMark2003 v330 and MadOnion 3DMark2001SE benchmarks. In the first of them, the third scene from Trolls' Lair in the "cycled" mode was played to reveal the overclocking potentials of the boards. On finding the critical frequencies we ran 3DMark2001SE benchmark three times. Once distortions appeared on the screen ("broken" pixels, stripes, lines etc.), then we pushed the memory frequency down by a few megahertz. If the computer hanged, we reduced the clock speed of the graphic chip. If the tests ran successfully, the overclocking was regarded as successful. We did not apply additional cooling.
In the end, we were able to overclock the GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition video card to the following frequencies:
That's not too bad really for the rated 400 MHz / 500 MHz. In the end, we get not only an extremely tempting solution at the promised $100, now with the option of overclocking. Frankly, it is simply incredible that such video cards will be sold in Russia at such a price. Well, it's good to analyze the overclocking of boards, but we are reminding it for the hundredth time that overclocking is not a compulsory feature of a video card, it may vary from sample to sample, and we can't be responsible for the equipment that went unusable after overclocking.
Benchmarking ResultsSynthetic benchmarks
Following the tradition, we start with our substantially amended benchmarking package. ShaderMark v2.0 As is well seen from the diagram, we observe a traditional lag of the NVIDIA board at this test. Version 2.0 HLSL shaders have never been a strong point of the NVIDIA GeForce FX chip architecture. This time, the situation simply confirmed once again. Also note the results for GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition and the Gigabyte's board on the base of the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro chip. They are practically always identical. All is natural enough, in view of the same graphic core in the first and second cases and the completely identical operating clock speed of the graphic processors in both these boards - the memory operating frequencies play a less significant part: all depends on the shader processing speed of the graphic processors. D3D RightMarkGeometry Processing Speed This test allows assessing the speed at which the geometry is processed by the accelerator. The test allows to choose the following illumination models (computed at the vertex level):
We used the most advanced mode with three diffuse-specular light sources in combination with three different operating modes: the traditional TCL (Fixed-Function Pipeline), version 1.1 vertex shaders and version 1.1 pixel shaders, version 2.0 vertex shaders and pixel shaders, as well as the simplest mode of ambient illumination is also in combination with the three operating modes: the traditional TCL (Fixed-Function Pipeline), vertex shaders 1.1 and pixel shaders 1.1, vertex shaders 2.0 and pixel shaders 2.0. In the case of Ambient illumination (the simplest constant illumination) and transformation we reach the practical limit for the card's bandwidth at processing the triangles.  For the case of the complex mode, we used the most advanced mode with three diffuse-specular light sources in combination with three different operating modes: with the traditional TCL (Fixed-Function Pipeline), version 1.1 vertex shaders and version 1.1 pixel shaders, version 2.0 vertex shaders and version 2.0 pixel shaders 2.0 we get quite predictable and familiar results as per the previous materials. In the Fixed-Function Pipeline mode, the MSI board built on the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 chip is beyond competition. This is quite a natural victory of NVIDIA chips in that ATI chips simply have no hardware support for T&L emulation, but NVIDIA chips offer the implementation of hardware units responsible for light source computation. Boards on the base of ATI chips offer results that are the same and stable in practically all the operating modes (the results for both ATI Radeon 9550, and ATI Radeon 9600 Pro are absolutely identical because of the same clock speeds of the GPUs - 400 MHz for each of the boards). The board built on the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 chip takes a noticeable lead in the Fixed-Function Pipeline mode, but gradually loses victory points as the version number and complexity of the shader go up (as is well seen in the VS 2.0 static flow control (HLSL) mode, the NVIDIA chip already lags well behind).  In the case of the Ambient illumination (the simplest constant illumination) and transformation mode where we get the practical limit for the card's bandwidth at handling the triangles, the results for both ATI cards and NVIDIA cards are more uniform, although the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 is more biased to the Fixed-Function Pipeline mode, as can be easily seen =). Again, ATI boards are leaders at these tests - they offer a higher limit of triangle bandwidth (albeit not so much greater than in NVIDIA boards). Pixel FillingThis test performs a number of various tasks, but we were mostly interested in the possibility of measuring the performance of frame buffer filling. We used two schemes in this test: both with a 256x256 texture and without such. For the case of measuring the performance during filling the buffer frame without a texture, we can ascertain a leadership for ATI boards, and the difference between ATI Radeon 9550 and ATI Radeon 9600 Pro can already be seen to the naked eye - the memory bandwidth which is different in these two boards because of the different memory operating speed came into play (it is higher in ATI Radeon 9600 Pro). In this test, the 4x1 architecture of NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 evidently shows results that fully match the given configuration in the number of pixel processors and texture units, together with the chip clock speed. The peak values differ from the theoretically admissible by merely 40-50 mln pixels per second, which in view of the produced absolute values can be regarded as a minor error. However, traditionally in this test, ATI chips do not reveal their theoretically declared pixel fillrate bandwidth.  For the case of texturing (1 texture of 256x256 in size), we get entirely different results rather than in the case without a texture. Now, MSI's board based on the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 chip takes a lead, while ATI boards still demonstrate varied results (ATI Radeon 9600 Pro is a true leader), but they are close to the results produced for NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700. Pixel ShadingThis test in the D3D RightMark benchmarking package allows to estimate the performance of executing various pixel shaders of the second version. In this test, the geometry has undergone maximum simplification in order to minimize the dependence of the test results on the geometric performance of the chip and verify the operation of purely pixel pipelines. We've brought in the operational modes for both 16-bit and 32-bit floating-point precision (switching between the precision modes is topical for NVIDIA chips only).  In the test for calculating pixel shaders, all the three boards for the case of simple 1.1 pixel shaders do a more or less the same good job, although ATI boards anyway offer some advantage.  NVIDIA chips proved shattered at performing version 2.0 shaders under 32-bit floating-point precision. We can make reservation for that the ATI chip was running that time at its invariable 24-bit precision, but let's look at the fps values produced with the 16-bit floating-point precision. In this case, the NVIDIA chip is in a vantage point, since it uses less precision rate than the ATI chip (whose absolute values, as expected, do not change - it runs at its invariable 24-bit). Yes, the fps values in NVIDIA chip went up as expected, but in the end it proved a fiasco again. By the results of the test, NVIDIA chip executes pixel programs twice as slower than ATI chips do. Point SpritesThis test is aimed at revealing the accelerator speed at displaying point sprites. Let's enumerate the adjustable test parameters:
In the test settings, we used 2 diffuse light sources and enabled animation. We also investigated the dependence of execution speed on displaying point sprites on the version of vertex shader used.  At point-sprites handling, no one-one conclusions can be made of course. As we see, the NVIDIA chip is inclined to handling smaller-size sprites, whereas ATI chips are more comfortable at handling mid-sized sprites and perform a bit faster (ATI Radeon 9600 Pro) with large sprites.  For the case of version 2.0 vertex shaders, MSI's board built on NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 chip is consistently among the outsiders, but the gap is not so great like that in using, say, version 2.0 pixel shaders in the previous test (tasks that are done here are quite different). Hidden Surface RemovalThis test allows to estimate the efficiency of removal of hidden points and primitives by the accelerator. A randomly generated scene will then be displayed in one of the three selected modes:
Also, we can investigate the dependence of the efficiency of hidden points and primitives removal efficiency on the version of vertex shader used (1.1 or 2.0).  Albeit not in all modes, the HSR block runs definitely faster in the NVIDIA chip than in ATI chips, and at that our settings in the tests suit very well to NVIDIA chips - we perform texture sampling which may not give us 100% correct results in estimating the efficiency of the HSR block of the chip. In the nearest future, this part of our analysis of accelerator operation will be complemented with one more HSR efficiency estimation mode in order to produce a clearer idea in this regard.  In the case of migration to using version 2.0 shaders, the general situation with the alignment of forces between ATI and NVIDIA chips hasn't changed. Codecreatures The well-known Codecreatures benchmark demonstrates a leadership of MicroStar's board on the base of the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 chip. NVIDIA's optimizations in combination with the good characteristics of the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 chip itself give a good result - NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 is a leader. How do you like the results for GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition? Results in a real application that is built on a real gaming engine confirm the results produced in specialized synthetic applications - GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition is practically on par with ATI's Radeon 9600 Pro and at $100!
3DMark 2003 v340 Now let's tamper a bit with 3DMark =). There were many times when we got reasons to doubt the evidence of this benchmark, so we'd better not judge once again who was right or wrong at that benchmark, but will simply present the results for this comprehensive package just for general information only =). Note that GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition again keeps a stiff upper lip =). Real-world gaming applicationsFrom synthetic applications, we are now moving on to analyzing the performance of the graphic boards in real gaming applications. Unreal Tournament 2003 This test is already outdated, so we'd better rule it out of the test package and replace it with the fresher Unreal Tournament 2004 which is part of our today's testing tools. Despite that the game is well optimized for NVIDIA cards, the leadership of NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 proved to be only relative to GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition. In the gaming application it lags well behind the opponent by Gigabyte built on the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro chip. Unreal II: The Awakening In the case of using the most complex lighting model, the geometry handling performance was higher than the similar parameter in NVIDIA chip (provided the complex modes with version 2.0 shaders missing in Unreal II: The Awakening are disabled). This is partly confirmed by the results of tests in Unreal II: The Awakening. The NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 chip in MSI's board beats GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition, and at 1600õ1200 it shatters even the the good old ATI Radeon 9600 Pro in Gigabyte's make. Call Of Duty In the "pure speed" mode (without using any image quality improvement techniques), GeCube's board lags behind MSI's solution on the base NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700. In its turn, it competes well with Gigabyte's solution on the base ATI Radeon 9600 Pro. At 1600õ1200, the board on NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 appears to be a bit faster than ATI Radeon 9600 Pro.  With the AA and AF (8 samples), there is a chance for MSI's board on NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 to rush forward to absolute leadership at all the resolutions. Not too bad really.. GeCube's board also keeps a stiff upper lip among its competitors, albeit takes the last place at this test, but the price is attractive... =). X2: The Threat
 The "Ultra Shadow" technology implemented in NVIDIA chips should allow them easily bypassing ATI boards at this test. Due to this technology, stencil shades whose rendering technology is widely used in the game are built faster. And we can see leadership of MSI's boards on NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 chip in the low resolution. At higher resolutions, the results get more or less equal because as the resolution goes up other factors limiting the performance of NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 chips and giving the chance to ATI boards come into play - ATI boards handle stencil shades in greater number of passes and demonstrate results on par with NVIDIA boards. However, let's not forget that the board on the base of NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 completely beats its direct competitor - GeCube board made on ATI Radeon 9550. Similar effects (stencil shades) will be used in the forthcoming DooM III (in new NVIDIA chips, the UltraShadow II technology that allows better handling stencil shades has already been implemented). However, the first experiences of people who have already tried DooM III in action suggest that boards on the base of NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra are not much faster than ATI Radeon X800 XT (for details, read http://cyberfight.ru/site/news/25473/?PHPSESSID=16c764d5efafdbf3330693763bbb7e1e). That video cards on the base of NV40 (GeForce 6800), as was stated above are merely a little bit faster than cards on the base of ATI R420 (X800) is simply an outrageous statement. Originally, the use of stencil shades was planned as a factor of significant advantage of NVIDIA cards for both the previous generation (GeForce FX) and the next generation (NV40) - this game offers such shades in abundance. Now these statements albeit not furnished with proof, do not bode any good for NVIDIA. We can expect a flow of new drivers from NVIDIA which will give a "drop-by-drop" performance rise due to optimization the architecture of NVIDIA boards, but that is definitely not what Carmack and NVIDIA anticipated. The matter of performance on video cards of the previous generation - ATI Radeon 9800XT and NVIDIA GeForce FX 5950 - remains open. In any case, we can tell something certain once we look at the engine and feel it live =). Unreal Tournament 2004This is a new test in our set of benchmarks. To be more precise, not the most new - we have already used it in our review on Gigabyte GeForce FX 5950 Ultra, but that time we used an integrated benchmark which gave rise to unfavorable criticism. Now we recorded our own demo "3DNews003 Demo" which reflects a real gaming process in one of the death-match maps of Unreal Tournament 2004 (we had to relive a bit of the past and shoot at bots =)). As the testing tool-set to run the demo, we used BenchemALL, a software that is gaining increasing popularity among testers.
Let's see the results. In fact, the engine of Unreal Tournament 2004 does not bring nothing radically new at all as compared to Unreal Tournament 2003, so it would be logical to expect a repetition of the picture observed in Unreal Tournament 2003. However, that didn't come true - at that, NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 loses to its direct competitor, GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition, and Gigabyte ATI Radeon 9600 Pro proves to be an absolute leader. In our view, that has nothing to do with the engine of Unreal Tournament 2004, but the cause is that optimizations running in Unreal Tournament 2003 have not yet been introduced into the latest drivers for Unreal Tournament 2004. With the release of new NVIDIA drivers (whose number is continuously increasing lately), we believe the performance at Unreal Tournament 2004 should become equal to that at Unreal Tournament 2003 (hopefully, not to the prejudice of quality).  Enabling the AA allowed NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 to rush forward relative to GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition, and even beat both boards on ATI chips at 1600x1200.  Anisotropic filtering, for which NVIDIA is currently doing optimizations for this game, allows producing results for NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 very similar to those for GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition, and at 1600õ1200 the competitor from NVIDIA anyway rushed forward. HALO: Combat EvolvedThe game uses version 2.0 pixel and vertex shader programs. Besides, the game offers wonderful features for testers by allowing forced enablement of version 1.1, 1.4 and version 2.0 pixel and vertex programs. Nevertheless, we long ago gave up using shaders of version other than 2.0 for this test, because we are mostly interested in the board's DirectX 9.0 performance and also because we have repeatedly shown performance difference for video cards on the base of ATI and NVIDIA chips between shader versions 1.1 and 2.0.  And again we get practically close and similar results for all the three boards. Gigabyte's board, as it should be, rushes a bit forward, whereas its direct competitors - GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition and MSI NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 perform simply close to one another at all the resolutions. It's surprising how the results for these boards could merge to the tenths of fps =).
Tomb Raider: Angel of DarknessTomb Raider engine: Angel of Darkness is a technically advanced DirectX 9.0 solution. The game uses version 2.0 pixel and vertex shaders, which, considering the results of synthetic tests, is not going to bring anything good for NVIDIA boards. We should also make essential reservations for the results of tests in this application before the readers can make themselves aware of the test results. NVIDIA's boards at this test have serious problems with rendering. In particular, after applying patch 49 the rendering of shades by the main character simply vanished with all NVIDIA boards without exception. In the further patch (version 52) all has been fixed already, but the option of game benchmarking has been disabled. Therefore, the results of boards built on NVIDIA chips should be perceived with the reservation that rendering results can't be regarded canonically ideal (while this is OK with video cards built on ATI chips).  The first scene that makes the most intense use of version 2.0 pixel shaders (which is confirmed by the analysis of the game's code) leaves no chances for NVIDIA's board based on the GeForce FX 5700 chip - the gap is disastrous and something prompts us that no new drivers will help fixing that =). ATI's boards cope quite well with that, the gap between Gigabyte's board on ATI Radeon 9600 Pro chips and GeCube's board on Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition is not that noticeable. Also note the absolute fps values. Both boards easily overcome the 30 fps "psychological barrier" at 1024x768, which allows us to claim these cards are suitable for active gaming in this application. Unfortunately, that can't be said about the NVIDIA cards...  The second scene is abundant with shaders, but they are not so great in number than in the previous test scene, which allows MSI's board on the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 chip slightly reducing the gap between its direct competitor - GeCube's Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition. Change of leadership is out of the question here.  Shaders are almost not used at all, but anyway NVIDIA board failed to get the leadership. The same sad gap versus its direct competitor. Boards on the base of ATI Radeon 9600 Pro and ATI Radeon 9550 in GeCube's make offer the same performance difference. Half-life 2 Leaked BetaIt is premature to make final conclusions on the performance of an accelerator basing on a raw and leaked version, since in the final release many things might change (we are more than confident that it will be the way). Nevertheless, I think I won't be wrong if I say that many readers would be curious to know the alignment of forces among graphic chips just at that benchmark. The game uses version 2.0 pixel and vertex shaders even more intensely than the previous game, which is found out through the analysis of the game's shader code. At the same time, the complexity of shaders is an order of magnitude higher than in Tomb Rider: Angel of Darkness.  So, here goes the first demo that we recorded. And again we see a disastrous gap for the board based on NVIDIA chip. ATI boards again show the same performance difference at all the resolutions. Again the 30 fps "psychological barrier" at 1024x768 was overcome.  The second demo appeared to be a too heave burden to cope for NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 =). The lag between its direct competitor sometimes amounts to 2.5 times! AquaMark 3 "Very nice!" - that's what we can say looking at the results in that complex semi-synthetic DirectX 9.0 benchmark for MSI GeForce FX 5700. The board demonstrates results close to those for ATI Radeon 9600 Pro and leaves its direct competitor, GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition, behind. Indeed, programmers from the Californian company are miracle-workers =).
 But with the AF enabled (also activated in this mode) we get a quite different alignment of forces. Although the difference is not great, NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 is among outsiders at this mode. FireStarterThe graphic engine does not use DX9 functionalities. So, I'd rather relate it to the DX8 generation This bodes NVIDIA's board more or less good chances to not lose face.  As is seen from the results, that has proved the way. MSI's board on NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 chip shows better results than GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition, however they have a too long way to go to reach the results for Gigabyte's board on ATI Radeon 9600 Pro chip - perhaps the higher memory bandwidth in Gigabyte's board makes itself felt.  In the gaming benchmark, the alignment of forces is similar to that in the previous one. The absolute values are also pleasing to see. Even at 1280x1024, the gameplay is on par for a game of this type. FarCryFarCry is a bright example of what we can expect from Hi-End boards with support for DirectX 9.0. The beauty demonstrated by the game gives cause to think of the futility of existence and that Middle-End boards might not be enough for future. =) The game uses version 2.0 pixel and vertex shaders (the forthcoming patch 1.2 of the game offers support for version 3.0 pixel shaders, which should stir up the interest to board on the base of NV40 with hardware support for version 3.0 shaders).  MSI's board on NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 chip suffered from serious problems with rendering with this driver version for the current (1.1) version of the game. With other drivers, no problems like that were found. So we bring in the results for only two boards on ATI chips. PainkillerLooking at the game engine of Painkiller,you can't say it offers something special. Version 1.1 pixel and vertex shaders, standard effects and the like, but such impression stays until you look at the game alive. In dynamics, the engine looks not bad at all. Here is a brief list of technologies used in the game:
For tests, we used the most recent version 1.3 of the game. Note that in the new version of the patch the mode of integrated benchmark has changed - now there are player (more precisely, monsters) models on the map, which adds more load to the accelerator (and the CPU).  MSI's board on NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 lags well behind. The game is definitely a hard nut to crack for the NVIDIA chips, despite that the engine should have been optimized for the NVIDIA GeForce FX architecture, since the game is part of NVIDIA's initiative called "The way it`s meant to be played".
Prince of Persia: Sands of TimeThe game is very well made with the finely tuned gameplay, and, most importantly, the nice graphic component. The game engine does not bring anything revolutionary (hardly anything more can be expected from PS2 port). The game imposes rigid requirements upon the video card - it must support version 1.1 pixel and vertex shaders. The game simply won't start with cards that don't offer support for pixel and vertex programs. Unfortunately, we were unable to find more detailed information on the game engine (dubbed "JADE engine") used for the PC version of the game. However, we already know something =).  Now let's look at the results in the simplest mode, without any improvement techniques. It seems like NVIDIA's label "The way it`s meant to be played" is gaining revenge for the defeat in Painkiller game. The results were taken using the Fraps utility, which may add some 1 fps error, however, as we can see from the diagrams, the gap from both (!) video cards is much greater than 1 fps. BreedThe game's engine dubbed Mercury can't boast any extraordinary abilities - like FarÑry's, the graphics boggles your mind. Nevertheless, the game uses version 1.1 pixel and vertex programs and stencil shades implemented on NVIDIA cards with the UltraShadow technology; on video cards built on ATI chips, because of the lack of support for this NVIDIA's proprietary technology, shades are rendered in greater number of passes, which results in drops of speed especially in applications where shades are in abundance. In other words, we can preliminarily claim that NVIDIA cards will have some advantage at that. However, let's not run ahead - tests will tell all.  The engine of the game answered our expectations. The card on the base of NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 chip offers an advantage over both (!) boards on the base of ATI chips. Stencil shades implemented on NVIDIA video cards with the UltraShadow technology indeed is a great help to NVIDIA boards. Well, let's wait for DooM III to find that out alive (or to disappoint ourselves in view of the above facts).
Final Words
As regards the direct competitors from NVIDIA (NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700) whose prices also dropped as low as $100 mark for a retail board, the situation here is not that simple. At most tests, both boards demonstrate practically the same performance, which we haven't seen for long in our experiments. The main ace of trump for ATI is as usual applications with version 2.0 shaders which are still few in numbers, but their mass release is indeed at hand. In our view, the product of GeCube looks more preferable, especially with its remarkable overclocking options. In any case, it is up to the buyer to decide =).
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I believe our readers have already got a clear idea of the features of GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition during the tests. The performance level simply can't leave you cold. In fact, we get a board of the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro level with the bit slower memory installed, whereas much lower clock speeds are set for Radeon 9550 by ATI. ATI wanted to introduce a new product into the low-end sector of the market, but instead GeCube offers another modification for the Middle-end sector, but at an incredibly low price. It was declared that GeCube Radeon 9550 Platinum Edition boards would be sold at about $100. If that is true, the board is definitely doomed to success in its price category.