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
Cheatonators are NOT USING True Trilinear filtering in EVERY DX game.
WAKE UP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
who cares about Nvidia anymore.....
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
Why not stating if these games are rather OpenGL, DirectX 8 or DirectX 9 Games...Looks Like Nvidia is ahead in OpenGl games (Homeworld 2 and Never Winter Nights for example). And ATI in Direct X Games...
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
WOW, look at all those DX9 benchmarks!!!!!!LOL
He is using drivers that are NOT available to the public(51.75), there are no IQ test(yet) and he has already come to a conclusion.
Bye bye Anand you are over for me!!!!
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
Cheatonators 5x.xx are used in this review!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!REDICOULOUS as ANAnD
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
ANAND + NVIDIA = this review of shit.PERIODianmills - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
I've lost my faith in you as an impartial reviewer.The idea to do all tests at 1024x768 was just PLAIN STUPID.
The difference between the cards is way higher at higher resolutions... The results are much different at the other sites
Reading this interview one could conclude that the 9800xt is only 20-30% faster than the 9600pro
This is crap Anandtech. Either shape up or you've lost another reader.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
I would Like To see widely played Driving games like Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2,4X4 Evo 2not that driving Anadtech Put in.I Request Anadtech to atleast include Need for speed Hot Pursuit 2.
Jeff7181 - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
#121...Quake 3 is used because it's CPU limited, not limited by video cards... so if a new CPU can run the game faster, that's an indiciation of it's performance... new games like HL2 and Doom3 tend to be more video card dependant than CPU dependant.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
lock on:modern air combatcall of duty
NASCAR Thunder 2004
Need for speed:HP
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
I think it is becoming clear that ATI cards are superior in DX9 games, and are the way to go. Sad for us Geforce owners. Hopefully though, Nvidia will address this and come to market with their next gen cards (not this new batch...the next) having a lot better DX9 performance--for the entire DX9 spec.If I were buying a card now, it'd be an ATI....but I don't think Nvidia is going to sit still, their new cards will be competitive.