NVIDIA and ATI HDCP Compatible Graphics Cards Roundup
by Josh Venning on November 16, 2006 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Battlefield 2 Performance
Battlefield 2 is a standard performance test we use here at AnandTech, and the game is still a very popular one, in spite of the recent release of the newest installment of the Battlefield series: Battlefield 2142. We like the graphics and physics engine of Battlefield 2, and we also find the game play highly addictive, even if load times can get somewhat lengthy when trying to enter a game.
The benchmark we have consists of a recorded demo of a third-person view of a character in a battle; running, shooting, and riding various vehicles including a jet. The benchmark captures a wide range of gaming and graphics styles from BF2, including effects such as explosions and flying debris. This provides us with frame rates which resemble actual game play as closely as possible.
The first thing we notice is that the BFG and EVGA 7950 GX2 are the overall performance leaders out of all of the cards. Without AA enabled Battlefield 2 is very cpu limited, which is why we see slightly lower performance with the 8800s than the 7950 GX2 at 1280x1024 resolution. At 1600x1200 the results look more like you would expect, with the 8800 GTX higher than the 7950 GX2 by about 10 fps. As you increase resolution, detail and AA settings, the 8800 will separate itself from the pack as we saw in our launch review.
In general, the next highest performer after the 7950 GX2 is the ATI Sapphire X1950 XTX, and Battlefield 2 gets very high frame rates in both resolutions with this card. A couple of other noteworthy performers are the Sparkle Calibre 7950 GT and the Leadtek WinFast (X7900 GS TDH Extreme. Both of these cards have decent factory overclocks, which give a boost in performance over the others in their class. The two lowest performers of the group are the Gigabyte 7600 GS HDMI and the Powercolor X1600 PRO, with the Powercolor card being the lowest performer of the group. All of these cards get playable frame rates in this game at 1280x1024, but the Powercolor X1600 PRO is the only card here that might be a little choppy at 1600x1200.
Battlefield 2 is a standard performance test we use here at AnandTech, and the game is still a very popular one, in spite of the recent release of the newest installment of the Battlefield series: Battlefield 2142. We like the graphics and physics engine of Battlefield 2, and we also find the game play highly addictive, even if load times can get somewhat lengthy when trying to enter a game.
The benchmark we have consists of a recorded demo of a third-person view of a character in a battle; running, shooting, and riding various vehicles including a jet. The benchmark captures a wide range of gaming and graphics styles from BF2, including effects such as explosions and flying debris. This provides us with frame rates which resemble actual game play as closely as possible.
The first thing we notice is that the BFG and EVGA 7950 GX2 are the overall performance leaders out of all of the cards. Without AA enabled Battlefield 2 is very cpu limited, which is why we see slightly lower performance with the 8800s than the 7950 GX2 at 1280x1024 resolution. At 1600x1200 the results look more like you would expect, with the 8800 GTX higher than the 7950 GX2 by about 10 fps. As you increase resolution, detail and AA settings, the 8800 will separate itself from the pack as we saw in our launch review.
In general, the next highest performer after the 7950 GX2 is the ATI Sapphire X1950 XTX, and Battlefield 2 gets very high frame rates in both resolutions with this card. A couple of other noteworthy performers are the Sparkle Calibre 7950 GT and the Leadtek WinFast (X7900 GS TDH Extreme. Both of these cards have decent factory overclocks, which give a boost in performance over the others in their class. The two lowest performers of the group are the Gigabyte 7600 GS HDMI and the Powercolor X1600 PRO, with the Powercolor card being the lowest performer of the group. All of these cards get playable frame rates in this game at 1280x1024, but the Powercolor X1600 PRO is the only card here that might be a little choppy at 1600x1200.
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LoneWolf15 - Tuesday, November 21, 2006 - link
Behind Enemy Lines? Explains why Blu-Ray adoption is so slow.NullSubroutine - Friday, November 17, 2006 - link
I think ATi er AMD had been working on the drivers for GPU accelration for HD movies longer than Nvidia is all. You only have so much resources in a given department, it would make seense that Nvidia put more focus in other things (like Linux drives) where as Ati was working on this and Folding @ home stuff.dickie1900 - Friday, November 17, 2006 - link
Do you think the results will change for the 8800s when DX10 rolls out with Vista or are we going to have to wait for games to be developed that use some of the newer instructions?DigitalFreak - Friday, November 17, 2006 - link
I would doubt it. I don't believe Blu-Ray/HD-DVD decoding has anything to do with DirectX.DigitalFreak - Friday, November 17, 2006 - link
Dude, it's a unicorn. :-)
phusg - Friday, November 17, 2006 - link
First off, thanks for the great review.Why not? Many people just look at the graphs and this way they would miss out on the 2 quietest cards.
Also (unrelated), it's a shame there was no mention of AGP cards. I'm sure I'm not the only one looking to stretch the life of their AGP HTPC.
And one more thing (unrelated), aren't there initiatives that are looking to handle the HD decoding in software? I'd love a review of these. What is the slowest CPU you can decode HD content with?
mino - Wednesday, November 22, 2006 - link
I second that.EVERY noise measurement should include reference of the bacground (system without the thingie which noise one measures).
As those 0dB would would not be 0dB. There would be the noise of the system without the noise of the card - hence the bacground noise.
Try to consider that in the future. No much work required for MUCH information added.
Spoelie - Friday, November 17, 2006 - link
coreavc is the fastest h264 software decoder, no competitionTheir cpu-only implementation is most of the time faster than the competition WITH gpu support, but they're working on gpu support as well.
It is payware tho.
http://coreavc.corecodec.org/">http://coreavc.corecodec.org/
NullSubroutine - Friday, November 17, 2006 - link
I originally had written this up in response to an artical that MS Office has mandatory authentication checks when doing updates. However, I think the idea of what the "intellectual property" industry is putting consumers through is rediculous.....this just in, cars now 'phone home' to validate the vehicial is authentic prior to fixing factory installed parts.....refridgerator units must now be activated via phone call before the cooling units will work....lotion now comes with EULA, which is automatically agreed to at time of purchase (information is inside the bottle)....desk drawers will now automatically lock after free trial period has ended....fees must now be paid to bacteria colonies each time a user flushes the toilet....due to people stealing food, the price has increased 1000x, if the food is not authentic it will tell you, via voice, that your food is not real food, and where authentic food can be purchased if you give the food companies the information on where your not real food was purchased; when asked about the policy, supporters claimed that food was an optional luxery, paint companies now produce super ultra high quality paint products - but can only be applied with a special paint brush on special surface (microchips installed) or else the paint looks like normal paint - when cosumers were asked about the new paint they said it looked great but unless they wanted to buy all new everything, it was all meaningless...
shecknoscopy - Thursday, November 16, 2006 - link
Wow... the Blu-ray era's off to a stunning start, eh? No more complaining about the poor game options for the Wii launch, when the stunning new world of BLU-RAY is kicking off with "Click."
Lawdy, help us.
-Sheq