Fall 2003 Video Card Roundup Part I - ATI's Radeon 9800 XT
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on October 1, 2003 3:02 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The New Test Suite
As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, we are introducing a brand new test suite with this review and we are also kicking off the first installment of a multipart series covering multiple aspects of current (and somewhat next) generation gaming performance.
By no means should you take the limited (yet extensive) tests we have here as all you will see from us, but rather something to whet your appetite for what is yet to come. The focus of this review is plain and simple – comparing the basic performance of the latest offerings from ATI and NVIDIA. In the future installments we will cover image quality, CPU scaling and other aspects of performance in greater detail. We will be making notes of noticeable visual differences between ATI and NVIDIA in this article, but a comparison with supporting images will be done in Part II of the series.
As far as the new test suite is concerned, here are the benchmarks that made it in:
AquaMark 3
Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour
F1 Challenge ’99-‘02
Final Fantasy XI Benchmark 2
Halo
Homeworld 2
Jedi Knight III: Jedi Academy
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004
Neverwinter Nights: The Shadows of the Undrentide
Simcity 4
Splinter Cell
Unreal Tournament 2003
X2
Warcraft III: Frozen Throne
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
We are working on expanding the suite even further, but for now this is what we have. If you’d like to see more games added please feel free to let us know either by sending an email or even better, leaving a comment through the system at the bottom of the page.
We used ATI’s publicly available Catalyst 3.7 drivers and in order to support the NV38 we used NVIDIA’s forthcoming 52.14 drivers. The 52.14 drivers apparently have issues in two games, neither of which are featured in our test suite (Half Life 2 & Gunmetal).
Our test bed was configured as follows:
2.8GHz Intel Processor Prescott
512MB DDR400
Intel 875P Motherboard
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Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
For all the people complaining about the cheat-y Dets, remember that Part 2 will be Image Quality based.. that's when you'll get your licks in.Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
#120, i said almost the exact same thing back in post #6 :PAnonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
I'd like to see both 45.23 and Det 50s for nV cards. Also, yeah, serious CPU limit here.Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
Ummm wtf are you using 1024x768 for?! Did you not notice the scores being so close. Especially when 9600 is close to 9800xt. Omg. What crap. Use 1290x960 or 1600x1200 AT LEAST IN ADDITION to 1024 by 768. Almost all of the graphs look cpu limited.How about we at least TRY to stress the 500$ cards next time OK???
And use the non cheating Detonators next time too will you? As in 43.30 or whatever they are. I want to see how bad the nv38 burns when you take out the cheats.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
Stay off my machine you moron!Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
Hi, my name is Bigshot and I wanna say I love your review! I think we now know that Nvidiot will be gone soon and it will be great just to have ATI!ATI! All the way!
ATI Rocks! and if you love Nvidia like I love my ATI watch out man!
Did you see the new Heat freakin sinks on the 9800XT? Did you see the cool flame job on them?
ATI!
Keep up the great work Anad!
ATI rocks them all! I should know.
Cause I got me one!
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
I guess this is all an early (or late) April Fools... Well, in Fact exactly 1/2 a year (6 months) later...Wow, 2 fools in a Year ! Great !!
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTA2NDg1OT...ALL DX9 games are OVER for NVIDIA !!!! PERIOD
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
FS2004 is a DX8 game!Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
FS2004 has the abilty to save a flight that can be used as a canned demo for benchmarking, variables like ATC must be turned off.FS2004 loads settings according to your hardware and it is up to the tester to make sure that ALL settings are identical. As the numbers indicate that was not done.
I would know, I watched the FS2004 GPU race in SD last month and something is very wrong with those posted in this review, ATI 9600 beats 5900-Ultra? LOL!!!
Please get some help!