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Gigabyte GeForce 6800 Ultra vs ASUS AX800XT: total Deathmatch

Author: Anna Timofeeva
Date: 26.09.2004

DOOM3

One month ago, exigent readers waited for the Far Cry results as a dessert, and now results for DOOM3 are in the same demand. All is predictable enough - the NVIDIA card offers comfortable gameplay in Hi Quality up to 1280x1024 (70 fps), while that of ATI's - up to 1024x768.

Since half the office enjoy playing DOOM3 at home with quite standard computers on R9600XT, then it's an immense happiness when there is a chance to get at a spare VGA monitor, 1GB RAM and a 3.2GHz processor! You take off something like 800XT or 6800Ultra from the shelf and enjoy the gameplay in DOOM3 with a 21" monitor getting the cherished 70 fps without any delays at all :-).

We have already prepared some curious figures for another review, and can't help sharing them with you. Unfortunately, our "guinea pigs" are not reflected in this graph. I would call it exotics of the PCI-Ex class, so it is of only academic interest just to demonstrate the huge performance gap for one and the same card run with a "prehistoric" driver (when there was no DOOM3) and the most recent WHQL-certified driver:

Final Words

This part is the most puzzling. Those who expected to get the findings like "X finally knocked out Y" or "X lost to Y without a score" are in for a disappointment - the cards are are about equal and demonstrate fantastic performance with their already mature drivers for which there is no reason to be ashamed of. I believe, those who simply wanted to have a nice time watching the fierce struggle in the ultra high-end sector have got a real pleasure reading this material.

It goes without saying, we did not expect anything radical or shocking from the test results. Proceeding from the situation on the market that we observed before the release of NV40/R420, we could foretell that NVIDIA simply couldn't help producing something that immediately makes you forget about the history with NV30, but ATI in turn can't afford to drop speed and rest on the laurels.

In fact, that has come true as we expected. There is absolutely no "total domination" in the top sector. Some sort of parity has been established, which is to the benefit for the consumer - the war should switch to the price niche. Meanwhile, we shouldn't forget that these "masterpieces" require respective frames - simply speaking, hardly can you expect a fantastic performance boost from Õ800ÕÒ or 6800Ultra on a Celeron-powered PC. The system has to be well-balanced, which also applies to a comfortable gameplay.

Now regarding the games. The very powerful and sharp upward leap on the market of video cards has resulted in the most games turned out to be "piece of cake" tasks for new video cards. Of course, nature abhors a vacuum. Take for instance the Ultra Quality mode in DOOM3 which a priori forces even the most confirmed gamer to upgrade the card in some time even though the card is a super-top :). But that relates more to the "psychological pressure" the marketing strategy is notorious for in varied fields. It's no use setting hopes for that, because it was, is and will be that way.

As regards the price bar, there is some sort of parity at that. The recommended price for 6800Ultra and Õ800ÕÒ to date is approximately equal - 500$. Note also that the price is recommended, and it may radically differ from that shown in the price list of a neighboring shop. In this case it is useless and illogical to set hopes for NVIDIÀ or ATI. Firstly, for ultrahigh-end solutions the production is more complicated technically than in the middle-end sector and thus costs an order of magnitude higher.

Secondly, the number of such cards in the retail is scanty. To date, this topic is urgent as never before, and according to all the market laws this fact provokes some pricing mess. For now, both these cards are in great shortage, but we held the first samples in the hands as early as in April!!! (the review was released in May after the NDA period expired). There hasn't been such a delayed announcement in history yet.

But let's not talk about the sad. Today we have "touched the legend", which brought us an immense pleasure, because as every fan of their business we are delighted to deal with hardware, especially so perfect, and explore its features in detail. Before us, we face further stages of progress, new video cards, new tests, but in any case the period of running "6800Ultra VS X800XT" Deathmatch at the very summit of video accelerators is already a thing of the past history.