Driverheaven Source Benchmark

***Veridian3*** · Aug 19, 2004, 07:57 AM

At the weekend we published our preview of Counter-Strike: Source, the latest game to be released by Valve. Counter-Strike: Source runs on the excellent Source engine which also powers Half-Life 2. We noted in our preview that even at high settings the engine ran well and performance was excellent however as with other new engines there is always a lot of questions around what card is faster. Luckily Valve have provided a tool in the latest build of CSS which answers that very question and we at Driverheaven have been lucky enough to have access to it.

So today we will be running ATI and Nvidia's high end cards through some Source benchmarks and reporting to you which card you'll want to invest in if your looking for the best performance from the Source engine.

Test Setup:

Connect 3D ATI Radeon X800 XTPE 256mb
Reference Nvidia Geforce 6800Ultra 256mb

Athlon64 FX-53
1gb Corsair PC3200LL
MSI K8T neo2- FIR
80gb Samsung 7200rpm 8mb Cache SATA Drive

Windows XP SP2
DX 9.0c
Nvidia Forceware 61.77
Catalyst 4.8 WHQL

Each test was run 3 times and the middle result shown in the graphs, Nvidia optimisations were on for the testing.

1280x960 0aa 0af

1280x960 4aa 8af

1600x1200 0aa 0af

1600x1200 4aa 8af

Well, i think its safe to say the results speak for themselves. There really is no competition at the moment if your looking for the fastest card to play Half-Life 2 or Counter-Strike: Source on. The ATI Radeon X800 XT PE outperforms the Geforce 6800 Ultra in every test we ran, regardless of the settings used for example at the setting of 1600x1200 4x Anti Aliasing/ 8xAniostropic Filtering (the lowest setting that most enthusiast users would expect to use) the Radeon outperforms the Geforce by 30%.

Out of intrest we also ran the game at the maximum AA/AF settings available to us, this means 6xAA-16xAF on the Radeon and 8xSAA-16xAF on the Geforce.

1280x960 Maxed

1600x1200 maxed

Again, at these enhanced settings the difference is huge. At maximum detail, the Radeon X800XTPE just streaks away from the Geforce 6800 Ultra and ends up 65% faster. Its also worth noting that the X800XTPE is showing completely playable framerates at the maximum possible quality where as the 6800 Ultra is only achieving playable framerates at much lower quality.

Conclusion:
Shocked is one word that comes to mind looking at these results. Where Nvidia has beaten ATI by a reasonable margin in Doom3 the results completely reverse and then some on the Source engine, a 30% performance difference ( 74fps to 52fps ) is, to be honest, a massive dissapointment if your a Geforce 6800 Ultra user. We had fully expected to have a very close contest when running the benchmarks however that has not proven to be the case, hopefully Nvidia have a new driver in the works that will bump up performance enough to make things competitive.

Edit: Graphs got a bit mixed up in the transfer...results were always correct and now the graphs are in the right place

Judas · Aug 19, 2004, 08:08 AM

whoa?

Counterfe1t · Aug 19, 2004, 08:13 AM

interesting i expected nvidia to have a performance drop when compared to radeon but i did not expect a drop of 65% i anticipated a drop of around 10-15%

~~HawK~~ · Aug 19, 2004, 08:17 AM

Oh dear... Doom and no 1/2Life for NV ??

technonerd · Aug 19, 2004, 08:19 AM

Hehe, I was playing CS:source and everybody said that 6800 will be way faster than X800. oooh they're up for surprise . That was very impressive, glad that I brought x800.

BTW Source was awesome.

***Veridian3*** · Aug 19, 2004, 08:21 AM

Some screens at each cards max playable settings

Radeon 1600x1200 6aa 16af

Geforce 1600x1200 4aa 8af

orrm · Aug 19, 2004, 08:23 AM

considering the fact the Counter Strike is the most playable multiplayer game on the planet... i'd say way to go ATi lol....

im planning on buying the X800XTPE anyway. Im a ATi fan since 9700 revolution... so these are good news...

~~HawK~~ · Aug 19, 2004, 08:27 AM

Call me an ATI boy if you want but the in first picture somehow it looks like the Ati one has more dept.. while the GF pic looks flatter

was sure I saw 4 pic's ??

Counterfe1t · Aug 19, 2004, 08:29 AM

I will tell you one thing that mostly everyone can agree on source is as much addicting as when the original CS was released. i cant remember the last time i went 4 hours straight until today.

Ev!L-aLphA · Aug 19, 2004, 08:36 AM

sweet =) to bad i cant see any of the darn hud or text or any thing with my new x800xt

sPaNk · Aug 19, 2004, 08:40 AM

Beautiful!!

sPaNk

Dom · Aug 19, 2004, 09:21 AM

Cool!

Resistor · Aug 19, 2004, 10:35 AM

This is just unbelievable... Nvidia losing by that much...
Looks like 9800pro will be pretty on par with Nvidia then??

Erroneus · Aug 19, 2004, 10:49 AM

Breathtaking :O

Hardly suprising the scores

Doom3 = nvidia game and HL2 = Ati game

And thanks for this, hl2 looks much more cooler then doom3

germanjulian · Aug 19, 2004, 10:53 AM

lol look at that expensive PC with all that ueber hardware and that ueber nvidia card...
now look at my system and what I got:

1024x768 resolution: All settings at high and WATER REFLECTION = ALL not just characters but also the world:

2AA and 8 AF = 40FPS
2AA and 4AF = 42Fps
2AA and no AF = 45Fps
0AA and no AF = 76Fps
0AA and 8AF = 65Fps.

Veridian3 did you also enable to reflect all objects in the settings? (I am sure you did).

look everybody my medium PC is nearly as fast as that nvidia ueber PC. rofl (me happy)
me also happy nvidiots are unhappy now...

germanjulian · Aug 19, 2004, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Erroneus

Breathtaking :O

Hardly suprising the scores

Doom3 = nvidia game and HL2 = Ati game

no thats totally bull.

Doom3 = nvidia game

hl2 = full spec dx9 game with no optimization for ati cards. Gabell said they coded in optimization for nvidia cards cause they where running the game so bad.

snake · Aug 19, 2004, 11:06 AM

Great Job ! The truth is once again blazing from heaven

ATI RULZ

now we got the proof !

***Veridian3*** · Aug 19, 2004, 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by germanjulian

lol look at that expensive PC with all that ueber hardware and that ueber nvidia card...
now look at my system and what I got:

1024x768 resolution: All settings at high and WATER REFLECTION = ALL not just characters but also the world:

2AA and 8 AF = 40FPS
2AA and 4AF = 42Fps
2AA and no AF = 45Fps
0AA and no AF = 76Fps
0AA and 8AF = 65Fps.

Veridian3 did you also enable to reflect all objects in the settings? (I am sure you did).

look everybody my medium PC is nearly as fast as that nvidia ueber PC. rofl (me happy)
me also happy nvidiots are unhappy now...

Everthing was set to the max setting, yes.

IamLakota · Aug 19, 2004, 11:12 AM

Doesn't suprise me at all,I believe this is what was expected D3 would be an NV game and HL2 and Ati game, makes me happy I have two system's.But then again I'm playing D3 now and Hl2 isn't out yet.

germanjulian · Aug 19, 2004, 11:13 AM

these results a quiete a bit worse then other nvidia results I just saw on ocforums...

Hanners · Aug 19, 2004, 11:15 AM

Were these tests run with optimisations disabled on the nVidia board?

Erroneus · Aug 19, 2004, 11:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by germanjulian

no thats totally bull.

Doom3 = nvidia game

hl2 = full spec dx9 game with no optimization for ati cards. Gabell said they coded in optimization for nvidia cards cause they where running the game so bad.

No optimization for ati cards!! You really believe in this? Offcourse it has optimaztion for ATI cards, which it also has for the nvidia card, and so f**** what?? Optimizations are good, as long as there are no IQ lose.

Gabell has also stated they have spent som time doing optimization for ati cards, not as much as on the nvidia cards, because the FX cards has some major problems, especially with FSAA.

And the benches doesn't lie.. doom 3 = nvidia game and hl2 = ati game.

germanjulian · Aug 19, 2004, 11:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hanners

Were these tests run with optimisations disabled on the nVidia board?

if you read the first post in this thread you will find your awnser.

Hanners · Aug 19, 2004, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by germanjulian

if you read the first post in this thread you will find your awnser.

D'oh, didn't see that until about the 5th time of reading!

I was assuming they were disabled considering the results on show here.

~~Darkoz~~ · Aug 19, 2004, 11:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by germanjulian

lol look at that expensive PC with all that ueber hardware and that ueber nvidia card...
now look at my system and what I got:

1024x768 resolution: All settings at high and WATER REFLECTION = ALL not just characters but also the world:

2AA and 8 AF = 40FPS
2AA and 4AF = 42Fps
2AA and no AF = 45Fps
0AA and no AF = 76Fps
0AA and 8AF = 65Fps.

Veridian3 did you also enable to reflect all objects in the settings? (I am sure you did).

look everybody my medium PC is nearly as fast as that nvidia ueber PC. rofl (me happy)
me also happy nvidiots are unhappy now...

I'm sorry, but you are an idiot.

Risiko · Aug 19, 2004, 11:41 AM

Well, ATI seems to have the advantage here. Hopefully Nvidia can get to work and pump out new drivers to significantly close the gap.

However, I have to point out something: there is something wrong with these benchmarks, folks. At 1280 X 960 with 4X AA and 8X AF, everything max, with the 6800Ultra, the Driverheaven graph shows the FPS at ~64. WTH? I tested the exact same configuration with my 6800GT clocked at exactly 6800Ultra levels, and the benchmark gives it 81. I've done that multiple times. And while 81 FPS still is a ways away from 95 FPS (w X800XTPE), it's not the 64 FPS that was in the graph. Why is there such a discrepency?

And I don't even have an FX53 Proc. I run on an overclocked (not even too much compared to what some people get) 2500+ XP.

And yes, Image settings are set to High Quality.

Pitbull2k · Aug 19, 2004, 11:48 AM

Woah this post is sure biased!!!!

ok riddle me this mister ati fanboy...

1600x1200 all settings high all reflections on 4x AF 6x AA run after run ~73-78fps on following system:

P IV 2.8c @ 3.37 250fsb OCZ 3700EB @ 250mhz 1:1
geforce 680oGT @ 420/1100. 61.77

This is the lamest bench i have ever seen... check your systems.

goofer456 · Aug 19, 2004, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkoz

I'm sorry, but you are an idiot.

And you are?

digitalemperor · Aug 19, 2004, 11:55 AM

Those benchmarks seem to be off by a decent margin. I just got done running the benchmark a bunch of times and took the average of what I got. I am setting AA/AF from within the game via the advanced options menu and also turning on "Reflect All" as opposed to "Reflect World". (uber system with real 6800U and FX53 listed in parenthesis)

1280x960 noAA / Trilinear = 100fps
(92fps)

1280x960 4xAA / 8xAF = 84fps
(62fps)

1600x1200 noAA / Trilinear = 80fps
(77fps)

1600x1200 4xAA / 8xAF = 57fps
(51fps)

My system specs you ask?

DFI NFII LanParty Ultra 400
AMD Athlon 2600+ XP-M @ 2.4ghz (11x220)
2x512 Samsung PC3200 DDR
PNY GeForce 6800GT @ Ultra (400/1100)

And let me tell you, a FX53 beats the heck out of a 2.4ghz Athlon XP. DriverHeaven may have made some sort of mistake or. Whether it was intentional or not, who's to say.

(using 61.77's and Image Settings set to "Quality" so optimizations were on.)

***Veridian3*** · Aug 19, 2004, 11:57 AM

Lets keep the thread nice and friendly people. No need to fight.

Aug 19, 2004, 07:57 AM	#1
*Veridian3* Administrator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cloaked Posts: 4,832 Rep Power: 174	Driverheaven Source Benchmark At the weekend we published our preview of Counter-Strike: Source, the latest game to be released by Valve. Counter-Strike: Source runs on the excellent Source engine which also powers Half-Life 2. We noted in our preview that even at high settings the engine ran well and performance was excellent however as with other new engines there is always a lot of questions around what card is faster. Luckily Valve have provided a tool in the latest build of CSS which answers that very question and we at Driverheaven have been lucky enough to have access to it. So today we will be running ATI and Nvidia's high end cards through some Source benchmarks and reporting to you which card you'll want to invest in if your looking for the best performance from the Source engine. Test Setup: Connect 3D ATI Radeon X800 XTPE 256mb Reference Nvidia Geforce 6800Ultra 256mb Athlon64 FX-53 1gb Corsair PC3200LL MSI K8T neo2- FIR 80gb Samsung 7200rpm 8mb Cache SATA Drive Windows XP SP2 DX 9.0c Nvidia Forceware 61.77 Catalyst 4.8 WHQL Each test was run 3 times and the middle result shown in the graphs, Nvidia optimisations were on for the testing. 1280x960 0aa 0af 1280x960 4aa 8af 1600x1200 0aa 0af 1600x1200 4aa 8af Well, i think its safe to say the results speak for themselves. There really is no competition at the moment if your looking for the fastest card to play Half-Life 2 or Counter-Strike: Source on. The ATI Radeon X800 XT PE outperforms the Geforce 6800 Ultra in every test we ran, regardless of the settings used for example at the setting of 1600x1200 4x Anti Aliasing/ 8xAniostropic Filtering (the lowest setting that most enthusiast users would expect to use) the Radeon outperforms the Geforce by 30%. Out of intrest we also ran the game at the maximum AA/AF settings available to us, this means 6xAA-16xAF on the Radeon and 8xSAA-16xAF on the Geforce. 1280x960 Maxed 1600x1200 maxed Again, at these enhanced settings the difference is huge. At maximum detail, the Radeon X800XTPE just streaks away from the Geforce 6800 Ultra and ends up 65% faster. Its also worth noting that the X800XTPE is showing completely playable framerates at the maximum possible quality where as the 6800 Ultra is only achieving playable framerates at much lower quality. Conclusion: Shocked is one word that comes to mind looking at these results. Where Nvidia has beaten ATI by a reasonable margin in Doom3 the results completely reverse and then some on the Source engine, a 30% performance difference ( 74fps to 52fps ) is, to be honest, a massive dissapointment if your a Geforce 6800 Ultra user. We had fully expected to have a very close contest when running the benchmarks however that has not proven to be the case, hopefully Nvidia have a new driver in the works that will bump up performance enough to make things competitive. Edit: Graphs got a bit mixed up in the transfer...results were always correct and now the graphs are in the right place

Aug 19, 2004, 08:13 AM	#3
Counterfe1t DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Texas Posts: 440 Rep Power: 0	interesting i expected nvidia to have a performance drop when compared to radeon but i did not expect a drop of 65% i anticipated a drop of around 10-15% __________________

Aug 19, 2004, 08:23 AM	#7
orrm DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 21 Rep Power: 0	considering the fact the Counter Strike is the most playable multiplayer game on the planet... i'd say way to go ATi lol.... im planning on buying the X800XTPE anyway. Im a ATi fan since 9700 revolution... so these are good news... __________________ Cheers, orrm.

Aug 19, 2004, 08:27 AM	#8
~~HawK~~ Banned Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 2,092 Rep Power: 0	Call me an ATI boy if you want but the in first picture somehow it looks like the Ati one has more dept.. while the GF pic looks flatter was sure I saw 4 pic's ?? Last edited by HawK; Aug 19, 2004 at 08:33 AM. Reason: Magic pure magic.. where are the pics gone ?

Aug 19, 2004, 08:29 AM	#9
Counterfe1t DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Texas Posts: 440 Rep Power: 0	I will tell you one thing that mostly everyone can agree on source is as much addicting as when the original CS was released. i cant remember the last time i went 4 hours straight until today. __________________

Aug 19, 2004, 08:17 AM	#4
~~HawK~~ Banned Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 2,092 Rep Power: 0	Oh dear... Doom and no 1/2Life for NV ??

Aug 19, 2004, 08:19 AM	#5
technonerd DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada Posts: 594 Rep Power: 0	Hehe, I was playing CS:source and everybody said that 6800 will be way faster than X800. oooh they're up for surprise . That was very impressive, glad that I brought x800. BTW Source was awesome.

Aug 19, 2004, 08:21 AM	Thread Starter #6
*Veridian3* Administrator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cloaked Posts: 4,832 Rep Power: 174	Some screens at each cards max playable settings Radeon 1600x1200 6aa 16af Geforce 1600x1200 4aa 8af

Aug 19, 2004, 08:36 AM	#10
Ev!L-aLphA \| n f e c t e D Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: California Posts: 4,111 Rep Power: 60	sweet =) to bad i cant see any of the darn hud or text or any thing with my new x800xt __________________ R.I.P 8/8/04 4/21/08

Aug 19, 2004, 08:40 AM	#11
sPaNk DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: Winnipeg, Canada Posts: 71 Rep Power: 0	Beautiful!! sPaNk

Aug 19, 2004, 09:21 AM	#12
Dom DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 12,940 Rep Power: 0	Cool!

Aug 19, 2004, 10:35 AM	#13
Resistor Get it Going.. Join Date: May 2004 Location: Brisbane ..Oz Posts: 731 Rep Power: 50	This is just unbelievable... Nvidia losing by that much... Looks like 9800pro will be pretty on par with Nvidia then??

Aug 19, 2004, 10:49 AM	#14
Erroneus Get off my lawn! Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Denmark Posts: 13,343 Rep Power: 114 System Specs	Breathtaking :O Hardly suprising the scores Doom3 = nvidia game and HL2 = Ati game And thanks for this, hl2 looks much more cooler then doom3 __________________

Aug 19, 2004, 10:53 AM	#15
germanjulian Back in London Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: London Posts: 1,797 Rep Power: 0	lol look at that expensive PC with all that ueber hardware and that ueber nvidia card... now look at my system and what I got: 1024x768 resolution: All settings at high and WATER REFLECTION = ALL not just characters but also the world: 2AA and 8 AF = 40FPS 2AA and 4AF = 42Fps 2AA and no AF = 45Fps 0AA and no AF = 76Fps 0AA and 8AF = 65Fps. Veridian3 did you also enable to reflect all objects in the settings? (I am sure you did). look everybody my medium PC is nearly as fast as that nvidia ueber PC. rofl (me happy) me also happy nvidiots are unhappy now... __________________ /\|\ Asus P5W DH Deluxe, Intel C2D E6600, 2GB Corsair XMS2-6400C4 DDR2, E-VGA GeForce 7800 GT, Creative X-Fi Extreme Music, 500GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA, Lian Li PC-V1100 Aluminum Case Black, etc. http://germanjulian.com /\|\

Aug 19, 2004, 11:06 AM	#17
snake HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: France Posts: 421 Rep Power: 60 System Specs	Great Job ! The truth is once again blazing from heaven ATI RULZ now we got the proof ! __________________ i7 930@4Ghz-DFI T3EH6-6Go OCZPC12800-GTX480+8800GT Barton 2600+@2.16 (188x11.5) # GeForce 6800 GT@Ultra 1.5Go PC3200 #Asus A7N8X Deluxe Bios 1008 26397 3DMark06/ 57736 3DMark01/163152 Aquamark3

Aug 19, 2004, 11:12 AM	#19
IamLakota HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Viriginia Posts: 552 Rep Power: 0	Doesn't suprise me at all,I believe this is what was expected D3 would be an NV game and HL2 and Ati game, makes me happy I have two system's.But then again I'm playing D3 now and Hl2 isn't out yet. __________________ Harley Davidson: If You Have To Ask You Wouldn't Understand!!! System Specs: Mobo:Asus P6T Deluxe V2,intel i7 920,2x BFG GTX 250 oc in SLI,Corsair 6gigs tri channel pc12800CL8 2xWD Velociraptor's 2x74gig WD Raptor , X-Fi Fatal1ty Titainium,HANNS-G HG281HD 1080p 28" monitor,Coolermaster HAF/922,PC-PWR&Cooling Sliencer 750,CoolerMaster V8 HSF

Aug 19, 2004, 11:13 AM	#20
germanjulian Back in London Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: London Posts: 1,797 Rep Power: 0	these results a quiete a bit worse then other nvidia results I just saw on ocforums... __________________ /\|\ Asus P5W DH Deluxe, Intel C2D E6600, 2GB Corsair XMS2-6400C4 DDR2, E-VGA GeForce 7800 GT, Creative X-Fi Extreme Music, 500GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA, Lian Li PC-V1100 Aluminum Case Black, etc. http://germanjulian.com /\|\

Aug 19, 2004, 11:15 AM	#21
Hanners DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: England Posts: 83 Rep Power: 0	Were these tests run with optimisations disabled on the nVidia board? __________________ [color=blue]Editor-in-Chief / Owner[/color] - [color=red]Elite Bastards[/color]

Aug 19, 2004, 11:41 AM	#26
Risiko DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 6 Rep Power: 0	Well, ATI seems to have the advantage here. Hopefully Nvidia can get to work and pump out new drivers to significantly close the gap. However, I have to point out something: there is something wrong with these benchmarks, folks. At 1280 X 960 with 4X AA and 8X AF, everything max, with the 6800Ultra, the Driverheaven graph shows the FPS at ~64. WTH? I tested the exact same configuration with my 6800GT clocked at exactly 6800Ultra levels, and the benchmark gives it 81. I've done that multiple times. And while 81 FPS still is a ways away from 95 FPS (w X800XTPE), it's not the 64 FPS that was in the graph. Why is there such a discrepency? And I don't even have an FX53 Proc. I run on an overclocked (not even too much compared to what some people get) 2500+ XP. And yes, Image settings are set to High Quality. Last edited by Risiko; Aug 19, 2004 at 12:01 PM.

Aug 19, 2004, 11:48 AM	#27
Pitbull2k DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Woah this post is sure biased!!!! ok riddle me this mister ati fanboy... 1600x1200 all settings high all reflections on 4x AF 6x AA run after run ~73-78fps on following system: P IV 2.8c @ 3.37 250fsb OCZ 3700EB @ 250mhz 1:1 geforce 680oGT @ 420/1100. 61.77 This is the lamest bench i have ever seen... check your systems.

Aug 19, 2004, 11:55 AM	#29
digitalemperor DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 5 Rep Power: 0	Those benchmarks seem to be off by a decent margin. I just got done running the benchmark a bunch of times and took the average of what I got. I am setting AA/AF from within the game via the advanced options menu and also turning on "Reflect All" as opposed to "Reflect World". (uber system with real 6800U and FX53 listed in parenthesis) 1280x960 noAA / Trilinear = 100fps (92fps) 1280x960 4xAA / 8xAF = 84fps (62fps) 1600x1200 noAA / Trilinear = 80fps (77fps) 1600x1200 4xAA / 8xAF = 57fps (51fps) My system specs you ask? DFI NFII LanParty Ultra 400 AMD Athlon 2600+ XP-M @ 2.4ghz (11x220) 2x512 Samsung PC3200 DDR PNY GeForce 6800GT @ Ultra (400/1100) And let me tell you, a FX53 beats the heck out of a 2.4ghz Athlon XP. DriverHeaven may have made some sort of mistake or. Whether it was intentional or not, who's to say. (using 61.77's and Image Settings set to "Quality" so optimizations were on.) Last edited by digitalemperor; Aug 19, 2004 at 12:08 PM.

Aug 19, 2004, 11:57 AM	Thread Starter #30
*Veridian3* Administrator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cloaked Posts: 4,832 Rep Power: 174	Lets keep the thread nice and friendly people. No need to fight.