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
AquaMark 3
Despite what some people would like everyone to think, Aquamark3 is really a test of how people developing software now envision DirectX 9 pixel and vertex shaders will be used in the future. The situation is very reminiscent of the first Sony PlayStation: the first games that used the technology were limited by the hardware until developers really learned to work with the hardware rather than on the hardware. As time progressed, we went from what were essentially ports of 16bit console games to amazingly complex and beautiful games like Gran Turismo 2. The same thing will happen with shader technology, and no amount of guessing and throwing functions at a gpu will tell you how its performance will really be in the future. Essentially, my advice is that any piece of software that claims it is a valid predictor of future performance should be taken lightly. We based our decision to include Aquamark3 on its popularity in the community. Aquamark3 is a cool piece of software, with some pretty neat tests, and a high score in any benchmark can still earn bragging rights in the forums. The only Aquamark3 test we ran was the publicly available 1024x768 4xAF noAA in order to maximize the usefulness of these numbers to the community. Our drivers were set to allow application control of AF and AA.
We can see almost a pairing off of the cards in direct competition with one another from each camp. ATI pulls ahead by an insignificant margin in the case of the top cards, but the 5600 Ultra falls way behind in this test. Image quality appears to have improved for NVIDIA in this benchmark over what has been reported of previous drivers, and the NV38 handled the massive overdraw portion of the test the smoothest of all the cards. We will be taking a much closer look at image quality very soon, but until then, it looks like ATI and NVIDIA have equal footing in the Aquamark3 arena and we are left to find more useful information about their differences elsewhere. We would also like to point out that the 9700 Pro held its own in this test inching out the standard 9800.
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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!