Fall '06 NVIDIA GPU Refresh - Part II: GeForce 7950 GT and SLI
by Derek Wilson on September 14, 2006 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Performance
We make use of the Lighthouse demo for Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. We have been using this benchmark for quite some time and facilitate automation with the scripts published at Beyond 3D. This benchmark is fairly close to in game performance for our system, but midrange users may see a little lower real world performance when tested with a lower speed processor.
Our settings all used the highest quality level possible including the extra SM3.0 features. As the advanced shaders and antialiasing are mutually exclusive under SC:CT, we left AA disabled and focused on the former. We set anisotropic filtering to 8x for all cards.
For this 3rd person stealth game, ultra high frame rates are not necessary. We have a good playing experience at 25 fps or higher. There may be the framerate junkie out there who likes it a little higher, but our recommendation is based on consistency of experience and ability to play the game without a degraded experience.
Those out there who like a smoother than necessary framerate will be happy with the performance of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory under any of these cards. Once again we see the X1900 XT 256MB card outpacing the 7950 GT, with 7950 GT SLI performance splitting the difference between the 7950 GX2 and 7900 GTX SLI.
Nothing much changes with the other resolutions. Even at 1920x1440 these cards remain playable. The 7900 GS pulling in at less than 30fps isn't that big an issue with this stealth based title, and 7900 GS SLI leads the X1950 XTX in performance. The 7950 GT lags behind both X1900 XT flavors throughout testing.
We make use of the Lighthouse demo for Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. We have been using this benchmark for quite some time and facilitate automation with the scripts published at Beyond 3D. This benchmark is fairly close to in game performance for our system, but midrange users may see a little lower real world performance when tested with a lower speed processor.
Our settings all used the highest quality level possible including the extra SM3.0 features. As the advanced shaders and antialiasing are mutually exclusive under SC:CT, we left AA disabled and focused on the former. We set anisotropic filtering to 8x for all cards.
For this 3rd person stealth game, ultra high frame rates are not necessary. We have a good playing experience at 25 fps or higher. There may be the framerate junkie out there who likes it a little higher, but our recommendation is based on consistency of experience and ability to play the game without a degraded experience.
Those out there who like a smoother than necessary framerate will be happy with the performance of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory under any of these cards. Once again we see the X1900 XT 256MB card outpacing the 7950 GT, with 7950 GT SLI performance splitting the difference between the 7950 GX2 and 7900 GTX SLI.
Nothing much changes with the other resolutions. Even at 1920x1440 these cards remain playable. The 7900 GS pulling in at less than 30fps isn't that big an issue with this stealth based title, and 7900 GS SLI leads the X1950 XTX in performance. The 7950 GT lags behind both X1900 XT flavors throughout testing.
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Genx87 - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
In this price category it is hard to justify Nvidia here. Nvidia's pressure from the top with the GX2 has pushed ATI's 2nd best card into this price range. The X1900XT is faster and better compared to this card IMO. It needs to be dropped to the 280-300 range and let it settle in around the 250 if it wants to compete with the X1900XT.ieskorp - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
What is the added value of a review/test when you are comparing Nvidia SLI configurations with single ATI 19k cards????JarredWalton - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
We've looked at the CF performance in the recent past, and nothing has changed. You'll notice in the conclusion that we really don't recommend getting two new current gen GPUs regardless of manufacturer. If you look at the X1950 XTX article, you can see where CrossFire sits in the performance ladder. Basically, it's competitive with SLI, though most will agree the SLI bridge is far more elegant than the CF dongle. Basically, the graphs were already crowded, and adding more cards/configurations just gets really messy. We included SLI numbers for the new cards mostly to show where they fall, i.e. 7900 GS SLI about equals 7900 GTX, while 7950 GT SLI is slightly faster than 7950 GX2.Quick summary of CF vs. SLI:
ATI "owns" Quake 4 now, along with Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. NVIDIA still clearly leads in Black and White 2. Performance in most of our other tested titles is very close. Price performance is more difficult to call, as X1950 are in very limited availability with no CF cards currently showing up, and prices are thus quite inflated. You can get Quad SLI for the cost of X1950 CrossFire... and neither one support the DirectX 10 feature set.
yacoub - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
Would really appreciate temperature testing of the XFX card idel and under full 3D load. Passively-cooled cards notoriously run hot so it would be nice to know ahead of time just how well it's cooled. Additional overclocking potential would also be nice to know.DerekWilson - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
we are working on a 7950 gt roundup that will address this and other issuesyacoub - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
Great thanks.Looks like the traditional 10-15 degrees Celcius for passive cooling holds true by Guru3D's review:
Card Temperature in idle (Celsius) Temperature at 100% load in (Celsius)
GeForce 7950 GT 45 64
XFX 7950 GT Extreme 64 81
I can't fathom allowing a GPU to run at over 60-65C. That's REALLY hot. 81C is downright dangerous and life-sapping for sure.
SniperWulf - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
It's pretty gratifying to see that the card I bought at the beginning of the year is still holding its own pretty good (X1900XT)DerekWilson - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
X1900 XT has been a good performer. It's also be a much better value than the X1900 XTX for its entire lifetime. Definitely a good purchasing decision.Tilmitt - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
You'd have to be stoned off your head to find 20FPS "a good experience" in any game. Unless you're a girl...they can't see lag or jaggies.VooDooAddict - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
I greatly disagree. Most casual girl gamers that I've had sit down and play a PC game are MORE distracted by and less tolerable of lag and low framerates then guys who game frequently. Those of us who play often know it's a fact of life and can tolerate it. New PC gamers (male and female) who may be more used to console systems are frustrated easily by the little things we putup with in the PC gaming world.