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
#19, did you even read this review at all? You look more idiotic by the second; Anand DID INCLUDE NV38.And if you are honestly that whiny to suggest that you can't wait for Part 2 for a free service such as Anandtech...then just get a life.
And no, SM2.0 cannot single handedly predict future game titles, that's just ignorance on your part. If you knew anything about programming you'd know that there are so many different variables that affect a game that it would take multiple code testing programs (like SM2.0) to even get a relatively accurate picture of future game title performance. Unfortunately, no web site in the world is going to spend their whole day doing that crap, they wouldn’t be able to get other games benchmarked.
(Btw, if you mistyped your comment about NV38, since your next comment seemed to imply that AT is somehow biased because they got NV38 and no one else did, you are simply a paranoid dope with nothing better to do than bash a big web site. Christ, you don't even know how dumb you sound; just today I was told by an editor through pms that AT's 9800XT review was delayed because they received NV38 at the last minute. Yeah, that clearly shows that NVIDIA had planned all along to have this AT review by their biased leash.
Haha, I just noticed over at Beyond3D that you're Natoma, yes? Haha, no wonder, you're one of the least knowledgeable guys there. Lol
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
#19 cont.: Look what NVidia needs is not NV38 but NV40. And NV40 should better be better than R420 in ALL terms.And I'd love to see NVidia back on track.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
Doom 3 is an OPENGL game, not DirectX. And Carmack himself said they had to write specific code paths for Nvidia (to use lower precision), so you can't really compare ATI and Nvidia in Doom 3 directly.Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
Perhaps YOU are clueless. I don't need to wait for complete reviews on other sides. And yes, they might have had more time as they did not benchmark NV38. However that they did not get NV38 makes this review even more suspicious.AND: You should also want Shadermark 2.0 crap if you are interested in playing some games already on the horizon and most games that will be released over the next year. Some of these games may be fillrate intensive like Aquamark3 but they are not that Pixel Shader 2.0 intensive.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
prescott..naa...but then again why not?Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
#11 you're an idiot. What loser who wants to buy a 9800XT or NV38 wants to see Shadermark 2.0 crap? Jesus, I certainly don't, and I'm one of many people that wants to buy a high-end video card. Tomb Raider sure, but he included 15 total games you idiot. And if you actually READ the review, you would have noticed Anand say he will do IQ testing in Part 2 of this review.Jesus, are there really this many clueless Anandtech readers? lol
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
@ 15: I was once an NVidia stockholder and gladly sold them early. With Doom 3 being DirectX 8 i mean that it does not use much of the new Shader capabilities that DirectX 9.0 cards have.I saw that Anand uses AF/AA in some games. Too bad that the most demanding games Aquamark3 and Halo were not also benched this way...
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
Yes Anand really is using a 2.8GHz Prescott. =)#11 Doom3 is OpenGL. I dont know where you got this directx 8 business. Are you bashing AT because NVIDIA scored poorly, or because ATI scored well?
Kristopher
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
@ 12: Because Raven Software uses far more polygons and newer shader extensions in JK3. It is not really comparable to Quake 3.Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
Concerning #11: I did not mean that all games are CPU limited. But Anandtech complained about not having enough time for AA/AF. So possibly they should have excluded games like FS 2004.