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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Pete - Friday, October 3, 2003 - link
Thanks for replying, Derek. Now get back ta work! ;)Anonymous User - Friday, October 3, 2003 - link
The fact that a prescott is being used is no big deal..omg idiots.The big deal is that the prescott is only 2.8Ghz and considering these tests are cpu limited mostly the cpu is holding it back. (although increasing the resolution could fix that too)
The fact the the NV38 is being tested is not a bad thing. The card will not be faster when it comes out. Remember the nv30?? "just wait til the drivers mature blah blah fucking blah..."
Anonymous User - Friday, October 3, 2003 - link
Hi Mgdbottled here and I just do not get all you stupid NVidiots! yer cards suck and blow and you know it so go away!!!Even the 9500p blows the 5900 out of the weads!!!
I'm with Bigshot...ATI rocks man!!!!
Anonymous User - Friday, October 3, 2003 - link
Sources among Taiwanese mainboard makers state that due to some major issues with Intel’s Strained Silicon 90nm fabrication technology commercial availability of Prescott processors is expected only in the first quarter next year. In December 2003 Intel is very likely to paper-launch its Prescott processors and supply only a handful of such chips to selected solution providers for systems intended for gaming, just like AMD did with its Athlon XP 2800+ processor last year, sources claimAnand has benched a chip (Prescott) that will only come out at least 3 months from now??? .
I think I'm wasting too much time on reviews and boards.
I should get a life!
Anonymous User - Friday, October 3, 2003 - link
I play games in 1024x768... with AAxAF turned up that is (which makes the testing perfect for me). When you show me a card that runs 1600x1200 with everything on that gets good framerates with NEW games then we'll talk.Anonymous User - Friday, October 3, 2003 - link
#19, When next year arrives there will be better cards that use the new GDDR memory which is supposingly 2X faster than what you have now. The NV4X is a new design and R4XX series are 2X faster than the R3XX series. So it's not worth it for a future investment like you make it sound. Everything is outdated in 6 months when you go for the latest and greatest in computers.Anonymous User - Friday, October 3, 2003 - link
I just called ati after reading your post and they told me the same thing. The first person I talked to said they never had stock on the item and the person I'm talking to now is checking for me. That's what happens when you give Canadiens your money I guess.Anonymous User - Friday, October 3, 2003 - link
ati has the worst customer service I have ever experienced. I ordered there 9800 xt off the website which at the time said it was in stock. After 2 days of crap they told me that they had an overwhelming demand and the order was backordered. This is after it said it was in stock on their website and I placed the order the day it came out. Then they explained their *crap* by saying the web site said limited amount in stock and that their web site only changes the next day. What a bunch of crap. They were very rude on the phone when I questioned them about it and especially when I asked if they could please cancel my order. Their response was "why would you want to, you can't get this anywhere else"....very disappointed....Anonymous User - Friday, October 3, 2003 - link
Please please please include Battlefield 1942 in your benchmark suite. This is a wonderful game and I never see it when graphics cards are being tested.Anonymous User - Friday, October 3, 2003 - link
I suggest you include Il2:Forgotten Battles (www.il2sturmovik.com) and Lock on: Modern Air Combat (www.lo-mac.com) in your benchmark suite. They will both stress all the newest hardware to the max and especially Il2 at the highest detail level will stress every part of the system. Furthermore people interested in playing these games will get valuable information from your site; it´s a lot more meaningful to say that system x runs Lo-MAC at 20fps in stead of 15 for system y than it is to say that Quake3 runs 400fps in stead of 500.