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
Half-Life 2: Episode One Performance
Episode One of the new Half-Life 2 series makes use of recent Source engine updates to include Valve's HDR technology. While some people have done HDR that won't allow antialiasing (even on ATI cards), Valve put a high value on building an HDR implementation that everyone can use with whatever settings they want. Consistency of experience is usually not important enough to developers who care about pushing the bleeding edge of technology, so we are very happy to see Valve going down this path.
We use the built-in timedemo feature to benchmark the game. Our timedemo consists of a protracted rocket launcher fight and features much debris and pyrotechnics. The Source engine timedemo feature is more like the nettimedemo of Id's Doom 3 engine, in that it plays back more than just the graphics. In fact, Valve includes some fairly intensive diagnostic tools that will reveal almost everything about every object in a scene. We haven't found a good use for this in the context of reviewing computer hardware, but our options are always open.
The highest visual quality settings possible were used including the "reflect all" setting which is normally not enabled by default, and anisotropic filtering was set at 8x. While the Source engine is notorious for giving great framerates for almost any hardware setup, we find the game isn't as enjoyable if it isn't running at at least 30fps. This is very attainable even at the highest resolution we tested on most cards, and thus our target framerate is a little higher in this game than others.
Half-Life 2 Performance is rather uneventful, as all of these cards are completely playable at the very highest settings all the way up to our highest resolution tested. Frame rates will fluctuate throughout the game, but for now at least Half-Life 2 games run without difficulty on all the midrange and faster GPU configurations. It is interesting to note that the 256MB X1900 XT has about a 6% advantage over the 7950 GT throughout our Half-Life 2 testing with AA turned off.
Even with 4xAA, everything remains easily playable. Like our sans AA testing, the X1900 XT 256MB outperforms the new 7950 GT across the board. Multi-GPU configurations are not necessary at all under Half-Life 2 without the use of a huge display.
Episode One of the new Half-Life 2 series makes use of recent Source engine updates to include Valve's HDR technology. While some people have done HDR that won't allow antialiasing (even on ATI cards), Valve put a high value on building an HDR implementation that everyone can use with whatever settings they want. Consistency of experience is usually not important enough to developers who care about pushing the bleeding edge of technology, so we are very happy to see Valve going down this path.
We use the built-in timedemo feature to benchmark the game. Our timedemo consists of a protracted rocket launcher fight and features much debris and pyrotechnics. The Source engine timedemo feature is more like the nettimedemo of Id's Doom 3 engine, in that it plays back more than just the graphics. In fact, Valve includes some fairly intensive diagnostic tools that will reveal almost everything about every object in a scene. We haven't found a good use for this in the context of reviewing computer hardware, but our options are always open.
The highest visual quality settings possible were used including the "reflect all" setting which is normally not enabled by default, and anisotropic filtering was set at 8x. While the Source engine is notorious for giving great framerates for almost any hardware setup, we find the game isn't as enjoyable if it isn't running at at least 30fps. This is very attainable even at the highest resolution we tested on most cards, and thus our target framerate is a little higher in this game than others.
Half-Life 2 Performance is rather uneventful, as all of these cards are completely playable at the very highest settings all the way up to our highest resolution tested. Frame rates will fluctuate throughout the game, but for now at least Half-Life 2 games run without difficulty on all the midrange and faster GPU configurations. It is interesting to note that the 256MB X1900 XT has about a 6% advantage over the 7950 GT throughout our Half-Life 2 testing with AA turned off.
Even with 4xAA, everything remains easily playable. Like our sans AA testing, the X1900 XT 256MB outperforms the new 7950 GT across the board. Multi-GPU configurations are not necessary at all under Half-Life 2 without the use of a huge display.
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Calin - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
Maybe they just ignore some visual artifacts if the playing experience is good.DerekWilson - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
winners don't use drugs :-Palso, I'm not trying to imply that we would like more fps for free -- just that (with oblivion) turning up the settings offers better playability (things don't pop out of no where right next to you) and a better visual experience than a higher framerate with less eye candy.
plus, my wife hates jaggies. jaggies and bad anisotropic filtering. I've not seen her react to lag, as she doesn't usually play games where lag is a factor. but she definitely hates waiting for anything, so I'd guess she'd hate lag too.
LoneWolf15 - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
Personally, I hope the Frag Dolls kick your butt for that remark. I'd pay money to see it.yacoub - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
PASSIVELY-COOLED top-tier GPU?! SWEET. Finally. :)goatfajitas - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
I would really like to see the 256mb version of 7950GT tested against the 512mb version (biostar makes both, but clocks are easy enough to adjust on any card) at various resolutions with and without 4xAA to see when/if the 512 megs helps speed things up.tuteja1986 - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
7950GT availability is terrible.. its looks like a 7800GTX 512MB launch.. few card released on day and none to seen for weeks ?Surprising I see ATI not having a paper launch with the X1950XTX which is amazing if you see ATI track record with delays after delays
At the moment i don't think its wise to buy them , as i hear G80 product start next month and early November launch.
I also hear that R600 has run in some trouble and i don't think they will be out this year and will lag 3months behind G80 launch. I would say Mid Jan if they fix what ever problem the engineers are having at ATI.
DerekWilson - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
a 256mb version should really be branded as an overclocked 7900 GT, but I won't argue that too much :-)we are planning on doing a roundup of 7950 Gt cards, and we will address this issue at that time.
thanks,
Derek Wilson
goatfajitas - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
Thanks. I should have guessed something like that would be coming from AT.retrospooty - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
cool. thanks.R3MF - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
i wonder if its possible?that with a Core 2 Duo 6600 would be a hell of a SFF combination!