Fall 2003 Video Card Roundup - Part 2: High End Shootout
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on October 7, 2003 5:30 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
An even more updated Test Suite
In Part 1 we introduced our new test suite; this edition brings some refinements and four additions, but (believe it or not) it is still not complete. It isn't our goal to simply throw numbers into space and see what happens, so we are really focusing on honing our benchmarks to make them as robust and accurate as possible. As such, we have had to forgo a few additions that we really wanted to make, and we've had to drop one of the titles we had included in Part 1. This is how the new suite looks as things stand for this article:
Aquamark3
C&C Generals: Zero Hour
EVE: The Second Genesis
F1 Challenge '99-'02
Final Fantasy XI
GunMetal
Halo
Homeworld 2
Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
Neverwinter Nights: Shadow of Undrendtide
SimCity 4
Splinter Cell
Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness
Tron 2.0
Unreal Tournament 2003
Warcraft III: Frozen Throne
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
X2: The Threat
Our previous Flight Simulator benchmark just didn't push the game far enough, and we are hard at work trying to find a benchmark that better reflects gameplay and is completely repeatable. We have really appreciated your feedback, and we ask that you continue to suggest games for possible inclusion in the suite. Just so you'll know what we already have slated to make it in "When their done" (to borrow from 3DRealms), these games will be added either as we finalize a benchmarking procedure for them or as they are released:
Doom3
MS Flight Simulator 2004
Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII
Halflife 2
FIFA Soccer 2004
We wanted to include Battlefield in this review unfortunately we were still unable to come up with a repeatable test to include. We have looked at other tests on the net and would rather use something a bit more scientific if possible but it's going to take some more time. If anyone from the Battlefield community has any suggestions on how to reliably benchmark the game, we're all ears.
As we received some criticism that the CPU we used in Part 1 wasn't fast enough, we upgraded our testbed for Part 2; the test system we used is as follows:
AMD Athlon64 FX51
1GB DDR400 (2x512MB)
nForce3 motherboard
With all of that out of the way, it's time to get to the benchmarks…
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
117 Comments
View All Comments
Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
You need to look at the FSAA each card empolys...go back and look again at the screenies, this time looking at all the jaggis on each card....especially in F1, it doesn't even look like nVidia is using FSAA....while on the ATI, it's smooth ......I don't think it's a driver comparison, just the fact that ATI FSAA is far better at doing the job....At least I think that's what he's talking about..hard to tell any IQ differences when the full size screenies are not working, but poor FSAA kinda jumps out at you (If your'e used to smooth FSAA)Also worth noting, nVidia made great jumps in performance in DX9, but nothing that actually used PS2.0 shaders : (
Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
#14 Blurred? Are you not wearing your glasses or something? Nice and sharp for me...Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
of course you do, you're a fanATIc...Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
I like the way he discounts Tomb raider. Saying it is just not a good game. Thats a matter of opinion. It almost seems like he trys to undermine that game before revealing any benches.And the benches for that game are not done in FPS but on percentage lost on PS2.0.
On first inspection of the graphs it appears that Nvidia is leading in tombraider. But if you look at the blurred print on the graph it does say "lower is better" Very clever!
Why no FPS in that game?
Nice information in this review but it almost seems that he is going out of his way to excuse Nvidia.
I smell a rat in this review.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
#3, #7: If you take the screens into photoshop and observe the result of their 'difference', you'll see that there's a fairly significant difference between the 45's and 3.7's, but almost no difference whatsoever between the 52's and 3.7's. In most of those screenshots it's impossible to do this since the shots aren't neccessarily from the exact same position each time. Try the ut2k3 ones for example. Also these are jpeg's, so there'll be a little fuzz due to the differences in compression.Also, if I need to take two screenshots into photoshop to be able to discern any difference between them, that's really saying alot. And since we can't refer to a reference software shot, it could be ati's driver that's off for all we know.
In any event I'm pleasantly surprised with nvidia. Their IQ has definitely caught up, and their performance is quickly improving. Hopefully the cat3.8's will pull a similar stunt.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
No he's just a "fanny"AgaBooga - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
They must have a reason for choosing those drivers. Anandtech has been around long enough for that :)The reason is probably along the lines of when they started this benchmarking because they did soooo many games, resolutions, AA and AF levels, times the number of different cards, etc. That takes quite some time. Had they waited for the newer ATI drivers, it may have delayed this article one, or even two weeks till publishing. Also, they did mention they will do a followup articles with the new drivers, so patience is the key here.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
#8 seems like a fanboy himselfdvinnen - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
well #8, Nvidia was able to do it with the wonder driver, I dn't see why Ati can'tAnonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
LOL, the ATI fanboys are already coming out of the woodwork. Listen #3 and #7, it's a fact, there is no IQ difference at all between the 50 Dets and the 3.7 CATs. And if you honestly believe you're going to see much of a difference with the CAT 3.8's....you're just stupid.