ATI's X1000 Series: Extended Performance Testing
by Derek Wilson on October 7, 2005 10:15 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Battlefield 2 Performance
The most requested game that we didn't include in our initial coverage is Battlefield 2. This highly popular game is quite important in comparing performance, as it does an excellent job of setting the standard for first-person shooter quality. The numbers that we attained came from running our custom BF2 demo on the highest quality settings. This means that anisotropic filtering was enabled both with and without AA (as Doom 3's high quality mode also enables AF).
Our "no AA" performance numbers show the X1800 XT performing on par with the 7800 GTX until we move beyond 1600x1200. The 7800 GT has an advantage over the X1800 XL as well. The most important thing to note is that this is the only test that we have run to show the X1600 XT performing on the level of the GeForce 6800 GT. While it is good to see the new mid-range part performing in its price class, one title is not enough to make it worth the $250. The "budget" X1300 doesn't quite perform as well as the 6600 GT, which looks to sell at about the same price.
After enabling 4xAA on Battlefield 2, the X1800 XT really stretches its legs. Likewise, the X1800 XL jumps ahead of the 7800 GT. When we move to the X1600 XT, the numbers show it falling further behind the 6800 GT.
The X1800 XT bearly breaks a sweat when AA is enabled dropping at most 18.3 percent. In fact, at every resolution, the X1800 XT drops about half the percent decrease in performance as seen on the 7800 GTX explaining the change in leadership between our two tests. Dropping more than the 6800 GT and less than the 6600 GT (percentage-wise), the X1600 XT shows different characteristics than its heavier hitting siblings.
Next up is Day of Defeat: Source. We already had a peak at this game's performance earlier this week. Now, let's see if our extended data supports what we saw then.
The most requested game that we didn't include in our initial coverage is Battlefield 2. This highly popular game is quite important in comparing performance, as it does an excellent job of setting the standard for first-person shooter quality. The numbers that we attained came from running our custom BF2 demo on the highest quality settings. This means that anisotropic filtering was enabled both with and without AA (as Doom 3's high quality mode also enables AF).
Our "no AA" performance numbers show the X1800 XT performing on par with the 7800 GTX until we move beyond 1600x1200. The 7800 GT has an advantage over the X1800 XL as well. The most important thing to note is that this is the only test that we have run to show the X1600 XT performing on the level of the GeForce 6800 GT. While it is good to see the new mid-range part performing in its price class, one title is not enough to make it worth the $250. The "budget" X1300 doesn't quite perform as well as the 6600 GT, which looks to sell at about the same price.
After enabling 4xAA on Battlefield 2, the X1800 XT really stretches its legs. Likewise, the X1800 XL jumps ahead of the 7800 GT. When we move to the X1600 XT, the numbers show it falling further behind the 6800 GT.
The X1800 XT bearly breaks a sweat when AA is enabled dropping at most 18.3 percent. In fact, at every resolution, the X1800 XT drops about half the percent decrease in performance as seen on the 7800 GTX explaining the change in leadership between our two tests. Dropping more than the 6800 GT and less than the 6600 GT (percentage-wise), the X1600 XT shows different characteristics than its heavier hitting siblings.
Next up is Day of Defeat: Source. We already had a peak at this game's performance earlier this week. Now, let's see if our extended data supports what we saw then.
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tfranzese - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
These points were brought up about the first article too. It's a big improvement, I agree, but it's still not to the level that this site was founded on.DerekWilson - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
We already commented on the FEAR Demo -- we won't test a game that doesn't show shipping performance characteristics. We are working on getting our hands on a prerelease copy of the shipping game for testing.We have had black and white 2 in house since it became available at best buy (as today is the official US launch, we got it a couple days early). We just haven't had enough time to finalize tests for it.
We will look into the recently released call of duty 2 demo among others. I agree that we could have done things better, and hopefully our coming follow up will hit all the points people want covered.
If you have any other suggestions, please let us know -- we will try our best to include them.
PrinceGaz - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
As for other suggestions, how about some games other than FPS or FPS-view (EQ2) style games? A driving game like NFS:U2 or colin McRae Rally 2005 would be an excellent addition. Then you should have some sort of flight/space-sim, like maybe X2. And a roleplaying game that isn't viewed from a first-person perspective. By including games that have a totally different style of graphics, you'll get a better idea of how well the card performs. X2 for instance would require totally different graphics performance than Half-Life 2.I know some of the games I've mentioned don't have a benchmarking mode, but use FRAPS to get the average framerate. And the minimum framerate. In fact the minimum framerate is more important than the average so you should include it as a matter of course in *all* tests, even to the point of dropping the average framerate if you don't have space. No one is too bothered if the average framerate while playing is 45 or 50fps while playing a game, but the difference between minimum framerates of 20 and 25fps would definitely be noticeable. I'm sure others will agree.
This (and many other) site seems to think FPS games are all people play, but a lot of us play games from all genres, so including them would be useful.
coldpower27 - Saturday, October 8, 2005 - link
I support the use of X2: The Threat as a benchmark, I also support the use of shipping games to compare numbers, so Anandtech should benchmark Black & White 2 as it is now available, plus Call of Duty 2 & Fear when they become available.bob661 - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
Even though I found the original article very informative (I guess I can read well), this one was much better. The bar graphs don't show how the performance goes down as you raise the resolution and turn on the eye candy.zmanww - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
what no Overclocking?come on I want to see that this baby can really do.
Peldor - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
I don't think the usual overclocking utilities are working for the X1x00 cards yet.DerekWilson - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
this is true -- we wanted to test slower versions and couldn't because of this.also reference board overclocking isn't always the best indication of retail board performance.
Lonyo - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
Would be nice to see some analysis of ATi's SM3 implimentation, with SM2 vs SM3 benchmarks in the games which do support SM2 and SM3 paths.tfranzese - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
From the article:I think the analysis and the conclusions up to this point have been far short sighted. Seems that the games that are using SM3.0 are taking considerable advantage of the new architecture. The Tech Report, Hexus and others were able to show that much.