NVIDIA's GeForce 7800 GTX Hits The Ground Running
by Derek Wilson on June 22, 2005 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Doom 3 1.3 Performance
Unlike most of the other games we're looking at, Doom 3 actually places quite a strain on the memory bandwidth of the graphics card. This seems to be the a common occurrence with many of the OpenGL games, though Doom 3 more so than others. The reason for this is the large number of stencil calculations that are required for the real time shadows. This allows the 6800U SLI setup to actually outperform a single 7800GTX by a sizeable margin - remember that the difference in memory bandwidth between a 6800U and a 7800GTX is only 9%. We also see that antialiasing has a major impact on the single 7800GTX, though it still maintains a commanding lead (25 to 81% depending on resolution and settings) over the 6800U. In the SLI configurations, the 7800GTX only leads by 15% at 1600x1200 4xAA, but that grows to 61% when we move to 2048x1536.
Switching to the ATI card, we can see that ATI has done a lot to close the performance gap in Doom 3. While the 6800U still wins in 1600x1200, the ATI card actually comes out ahead at 2048x1536. Like we've seen in a few other games, though, the NVIDIA drivers don't seem to handle 2048x1536 very well. With AA/AF enabled, the 6800U once again takes a 50% performance hit when increasing the resolution. Due to the dark atmosphere and lighting flashes, Doom 3 is a game that definitely needs to run at a high refresh rate or with VSYNC enabled, so again the lack of performance at 2048x1536 isn't the end of the world. What we're mostly concerned with is taxing the hardware to show future potential, and it's safe to say that the 7800GTX - particularly with SLI - will be able to handle all games for many years.
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swatX - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
THE SLI is meant to played on high res.. if you got money to brn on SLI then i am damn sure you got money to burn on a 19" monitor ;)CtK - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
can Dual Display be used in SLi mode??Johnmcl7 - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
In general 6600GT SLI performance seems a bit random, in some cases it's really good as with BF2 but in others not as good as a 6800GT.John
bob661 - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
Anyone notice how a SLI'd 6600GT is just as quick as a 6800 Ultra in BF2?R3MF - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
give me some details on the 7800 and 7800GTwhat, when, and how much?
bob661 - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
#59I am more eager to see how the new midrange cards will perform than these parts but if I had a spare $600 I would jump all over this.
bob661 - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
#56LMAO!!!!
bob661 - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
#44And I thought paying $350 for a video cards was too much then or even before than there was the $200 high end and before that the $100 high end. I balked at all of those prices but I understood why they were prices as such and didn't bitch everytime the costs went up. The bar keeps being raised and the prices go with it. Inflation, more features and the fact that most of us here can afford $350 video cards pushes the cost of new PREMIUM cards higher by the year. It's only going to go up unless either people quit buying the high end cards or the manufatucrers find a magical process to reduce costs dramatically.
Johnmcl7 - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
You're quite right, there's always a premium for the best, I don't see any difference here, no-one is being forced to buy this graphics card. As usual, I'll wait until something offers me a better price/performance ratio over my current X850XT/6800 Ultra duo.John
Avalon - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
Seems to be a problem with the last Knights of the Old Republic 2 graph. Both 7800GTX setups are "performing" less than all the other cards benched. Despite all the mistakes, it still seems like I was right in that this card is made for those who play at high resolutions. Anyone with an R420 of NV40 based card that plays at 16x12 or less should probably not bother upgrading, unless they feel the need to.