DH Article: ATI GFX shootout

Zardon · Jun 29, 2004, 11:10 PM

Over the last few weeks ive been testing an array of ATI boards and comparing with new game engines and older game engines to try and help people ascertain if its really worthwhile spending masses of money on a new XT800XTPE for their particular favourite games. So the cards im playing with are:

X800XT PE AGP 520/560
X800XT PE PCIe 520/560
X800XT PCIe 500/500
X800 PRO AGP 475/450
X600XT PCIe 500/365
X300 PCIe 325/195
9800XT AGP 412/365
9700 AGP 275/270
9600 XT 500/300

across a range of game engines from older quake based FPS to the newest farcry engine.

read the article here

Logla · Jun 29, 2004, 11:19 PM

Well, looks like theres no need for me to go PCIe for the forseeable but I can see an X800XT PE sitting in the loglarig before xmas

Great review.

Chaos · Jun 29, 2004, 11:26 PM

WOW !!!! that was pretty inclusive Zardon. I am surprised how well the 9700's faired on average. If I was on a real tight budget and could find a new 9700 Pro it still is able to handle most everything thrown it's way.

germanjulian · Jun 29, 2004, 11:59 PM

HOLY hell that must have been super effort. very intresting but dam a fast CPU is still so important...

and I dont understand this

Quote:

as with titles like Half life 2, Doom 3 and Unreal 3 just around the corner every ounce of graphical prowess will assuredly be sucked dry.

I think zardon is getting a bit exited with all his super hardware. isnt the unreal 3 game comming out at the end of next year??

say zardon if you dont need any of those cards there I am willing to take them... maybe the pci-x cards? no?

Malus · Jun 30, 2004, 02:01 AM

Are the flash graphs necessary? Think about the BSD users!

Interesting review, makes my 9800se look like crap.

Rosco[CoF] · Jun 30, 2004, 02:18 AM

Great article Zardon, very informative for those planning an upgrade path.

I have one very minor question regarding the article, involving just page one of your shot of the options tab in the ATI drivers.

Your shot shows the drivers having a packaging version of 8.02-040515a-016034C loaded on the Radeon X600.
I have the same ATI 4.6 Catalyst drivers installed on my Radeon 9800 Pro, and the packaging version on mine shows a lower denominator, 8.02-040515a-015958C. Can you describe any differences this may be?

Zardon · Jun 30, 2004, 07:34 AM

Actually Rosco I do apologise, that was not the driver used in testing, ive fixed that. The driver version screenshot I uploaded (wrongly) is infact a reviewers driver that came on a CD supplied by ATI.

fixed it now.

Dom · Jun 30, 2004, 08:23 AM

This review must of taken sometime, eh?

Falstaff · Jun 30, 2004, 09:56 AM

my god, no wonder I havent heard from Z in soooooooooo long.....excellent review...and I say a big "bleah" to PCI for awhile

Zardon · Jun 30, 2004, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dom
This review must of taken sometime, eh?

I dont relish another, thats for sure........

Rosco[CoF] · Jun 30, 2004, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Zardon
Actually Rosco I do apologise,

thats cool, I was just wondering about it.
I noticed you still had stuttering issues with CoD and was hoping you
might have found a way to remedy it. Tried the refresh rate, that helped it out a bit here as well.

deekey777 · Jun 30, 2004, 12:07 PM

Halo&activated AA: I thought, it's impossible...

Zardon · Jun 30, 2004, 01:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by deekey777
Halo&activated AA: I thought, it's impossible...

worked for me with those drivers .........

swimtech · Jun 30, 2004, 02:20 PM

Excellent! The differences in the cards you reviewed coupled with knowledge about the hardware (pipes, clock rates, etc.) of other cards in ATI's lineup should give us all the ability to interpolate the results with some degree of accuracy for cards that were not reviewed as well.

Thanks tons!

Zardon · Jun 30, 2004, 02:43 PM

yes hopefully there is enough of a range of engines and cards to let people judge how a possible upgrade might benefit them.

No_Style · Jun 30, 2004, 03:15 PM

First off, great work Z~

I think this is the most benefitial review to date. It's interesting to see AGP taking the lead over PCIe, but for how long?

Too bad you didn't include the 9500 PRO.

I love that card. But I could estimate where it would stand..

Again, great work Z. Much appreciated.

Zardon · Jun 30, 2004, 03:38 PM

I actually tried getting a hold of a 9500 pro along with a 8500 but had to make do with what I had. The 9500 pro is quite comparible to the 9700 used in the article though.

PCIe is still in its early days by the way, it has a great future IMO. the first boards intel have sent reviewers while offering no overclocking abilities are extremely stable and performance is very good. DDR2 is right now holding the machine back alot - even though its 533mhz, the latencies are very poor indeed....... but that will change, im interested to see how this all develops over the coming months.

Salty85 · Jul 1, 2004, 05:59 AM

The card tested, just for the record, was a 9700 Non-Pro, not the ATI 9700 Pro. And as for graphical capacity, the 9700 Pro was the same as the 9700 AIW Pro. Thanks to who can answer my questions.

Demigod · Jul 1, 2004, 05:36 PM

So can we expect one of these for nvidia cards too?

Great work

BWX · Jul 2, 2004, 02:23 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Rosco[CoF]

I noticed you still had stuttering issues with CoD and was hoping you
might have found a way to remedy it. Tried the refresh rate, that helped it out a bit here as well.

Hmmm, I haven't read the review yet-- COD stutters with the X800 series too? Damn, I KNEW it was the engine- something is broken in that thing..

Renegade[CSR] · Jul 6, 2004, 07:38 PM

Interesting results at 1024x768, almost no difference between even the high end and low end cards, barring the x300.

Excellent review, well done.

Jun 29, 2004, 11:10 PM	#1
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 179	DH Article: ATI GFX shootout Over the last few weeks ive been testing an array of ATI boards and comparing with new game engines and older game engines to try and help people ascertain if its really worthwhile spending masses of money on a new XT800XTPE for their particular favourite games. So the cards im playing with are: X800XT PE AGP 520/560 X800XT PE PCIe 520/560 X800XT PCIe 500/500 X800 PRO AGP 475/450 X600XT PCIe 500/365 X300 PCIe 325/195 9800XT AGP 412/365 9700 AGP 275/270 9600 XT 500/300 across a range of game engines from older quake based FPS to the newest farcry engine. read the article here

Jun 29, 2004, 11:26 PM	#3
Chaos Number Nine Join Date: May 2002 Location: Nova Scotia Posts: 5,268 Rep Power: 167 System Specs	WOW !!!! that was pretty inclusive Zardon. I am surprised how well the 9700's faired on average. If I was on a real tight budget and could find a new 9700 Pro it still is able to handle most everything thrown it's way. __________________

Jun 30, 2004, 02:01 AM	#5
Malus BSD SMASH! Join Date: May 2002 Location: A rabbit hole. . . Posts: 1,170 Rep Power: 0	Are the flash graphs necessary? Think about the BSD users! Interesting review, makes my 9800se look like crap. __________________ quad (FreeBSD/amd64 8-CURRENT): Intel Q6600 - Asus P5E-VM HDMI - 2x2 GB Kingston PC6400 DDR2 Ram - Seagate 320GB 7200RPM HD - 2xSeagate 1TB 7200RPM HD in RAID 1 via ZFS - Lite-On 20x DVD Multi Recorder - Coolermaster Centurion 5 router (FreeBSD/amd64 8-CURRENT): Intel E4500 - Intel D945GCNL - 2 GB PC6400 Mushkin Ram - Lite-On 48x24x48x16 - Seagate 320GB 7200RPM HD - Silverstone SST-SG02-F wanderer (FreeBSD/i386 7-CURRENT): Lenovo Thinkpad T61p mini (OS X 10.5): Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.8Ghz, 4 GB Mushkin PC5400 Ram - Headroom MicroDAC Portable sound: Rockboxed iPod Video -> Westone UM2's Not-So-Portable Sound: Headroon MicroDAC -> Singlepower PPX3-SLAM -> Grado RS-1's or Beyerdynamic DT-880's Very-Not-Portable-Sound: Squeezebox v3 -> Denon AVR-1507 -> B&W 683's & Sunfire HRS-10

Jun 30, 2004, 09:56 AM	#9
Falstaff Old Codger Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: USAFA Posts: 19,048 Rep Power: 207	my god, no wonder I havent heard from Z in soooooooooo long.....excellent review...and I say a big "bleah" to PCI for awhile __________________ "Inspiration is always a surprising visitor."

Jun 30, 2004, 12:07 PM	#12
deekey777 Grünschnabel Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Good Old Germany Posts: 285 Rep Power: 0	Halo&activated AA: I thought, it's impossible... __________________ I know, my english is terrible.

Jun 29, 2004, 11:19 PM	#2
Logla HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 3,311 Rep Power: 0	Well, looks like theres no need for me to go PCIe for the forseeable but I can see an X800XT PE sitting in the loglarig before xmas Great review.

Jun 30, 2004, 02:18 AM	#6
Rosco[CoF] HardwareHeaven Lover Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Traverse City, MI Posts: 158 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Great article Zardon, very informative for those planning an upgrade path. I have one very minor question regarding the article, involving just page one of your shot of the options tab in the ATI drivers. Your shot shows the drivers having a packaging version of 8.02-040515a-016034C loaded on the Radeon X600. I have the same ATI 4.6 Catalyst drivers installed on my Radeon 9800 Pro, and the packaging version on mine shows a lower denominator, 8.02-040515a-015958C. Can you describe any differences this may be?

Jun 30, 2004, 07:34 AM	Thread Starter #7
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 179	Actually Rosco I do apologise, that was not the driver used in testing, ive fixed that. The driver version screenshot I uploaded (wrongly) is infact a reviewers driver that came on a CD supplied by ATI. fixed it now.

Jun 30, 2004, 08:23 AM	#8
Dom DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 12,940 Rep Power: 0	This review must of taken sometime, eh?

Jun 30, 2004, 02:20 PM	#14
swimtech HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: North Carolina Posts: 4,040 Rep Power: 124 System Specs	Excellent! The differences in the cards you reviewed coupled with knowledge about the hardware (pipes, clock rates, etc.) of other cards in ATI's lineup should give us all the ability to interpolate the results with some degree of accuracy for cards that were not reviewed as well. Thanks tons! __________________ It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

Jun 30, 2004, 02:43 PM	Thread Starter #15
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 179	yes hopefully there is enough of a range of engines and cards to let people judge how a possible upgrade might benefit them.

Jun 30, 2004, 03:15 PM	#16
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	BA-ZING First off, great work Z~ I think this is the most benefitial review to date. It's interesting to see AGP taking the lead over PCIe, but for how long? Too bad you didn't include the 9500 PRO. I love that card. But I could estimate where it would stand.. Again, great work Z. Much appreciated. __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here

Jun 30, 2004, 03:38 PM	Thread Starter #17
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 179	I actually tried getting a hold of a 9500 pro along with a 8500 but had to make do with what I had. The 9500 pro is quite comparible to the 9700 used in the article though. PCIe is still in its early days by the way, it has a great future IMO. the first boards intel have sent reviewers while offering no overclocking abilities are extremely stable and performance is very good. DDR2 is right now holding the machine back alot - even though its 533mhz, the latencies are very poor indeed....... but that will change, im interested to see how this all develops over the coming months.

Jul 1, 2004, 05:59 AM	#18
Salty85 DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 59 Rep Power: 0	Confirming the 9700 The card tested, just for the record, was a 9700 Non-Pro, not the ATI 9700 Pro. And as for graphical capacity, the 9700 Pro was the same as the 9700 AIW Pro. Thanks to who can answer my questions.

Jul 1, 2004, 05:36 PM	#19
Demigod DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 102 Rep Power: 0	So can we expect one of these for nvidia cards too? Great work

Jul 6, 2004, 07:38 PM	#21
Renegade[CSR] DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Undisclosed Renegade Location Posts: 396 Rep Power: 0	Interesting results at 1024x768, almost no difference between even the high end and low end cards, barring the x300. Excellent review, well done.