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
#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.