NVIDIA GeForce FX 5800 Ultra: It's Here, but is it Good?

AA+AF Performance - Serious Sam 2

Serious Sam 2 AA/Aniso Performance 1024x768x32 Radeon 9700 Pro (4X AA/8X Perf Aniso) Radeon 9700 (4X AA/8X Perf Aniso) GeForce FX 5800 Ultra (4X AA/8X Bal Aniso) Radeon 9700 Pro (4X AA/8X Qual Aniso) Radeon 9700 (4X AA/8X Qual Aniso) GeForce FX 5800 (4X AA/8X Bal Ansio) 115.7 102.2 96.2 86.4 75.8 74 | 0 | 23 | 46 | 69 | 93 | 116 | 139

As we start looking at other games for performance data we see that things don't change under Serious Sam 2, the standings are virtually identical to those under UT2003 with the exception of the regular FX 5800 falling to the last position. The top performing Radeon 9700 Pro ends up providing a 20% performance advantage over the GeForce FX 5800 Ultra, which is exactly the lead we saw in UT.

Serious Sam 2 AA/Aniso Performance Minimum FPS - 1024x768x32 Radeon 9700 Pro (4X AA/8X Perf Aniso) GeForce FX 5800 Ultra (4X AA/8X Bal Aniso) Radeon 9700 (4X AA/8X Perf Aniso) Radeon 9700 Pro (4X AA/8X Qual Aniso) Radeon 9700 (4X AA/8X Qual Aniso) GeForce FX 5800 (4X AA/8X Bal Ansio) 80.4 72.6 68.9 58.1 53.8 52.5 | 0 | 16 | 32 | 48 | 64 | 80 | 10

The GeForce FX 5800 Ultra gets a lot closer in this minimum frame rate chart, but is still a let down considering that it is still around 10% away from the performance of a card that has been shipping for almost 6 months now.

Serious Sam 2 AA/Aniso Performance 1280x960x32 Radeon 9700 Pro (4X AA/8X Perf Aniso) Radeon 9700 (4X AA/8X Perf Aniso) GeForce FX 5800 Ultra (4X AA/8X Bal Aniso) Radeon 9700 Pro (4X AA/8X Qual Aniso) Radeon 9700 (4X AA/8X Qual Aniso) GeForce FX 5800 (4X AA/8X Bal Ansio) 82.9 72.6 66.5 62.5 54.5 46.5 | 0 | 17 | 33 | 50 | 66 | 83 | 10

The standings remain the same as we crank up the resolution, with the top performing Radeon 9700 Pro configuration extending its lead to 24%.

Serious Sam 2 AA/Aniso Performance Minimum FPS - 1280x960x32 Radeon 9700 Pro (4X AA/8X Perf Aniso) Radeon 9700 (4X AA/8X Perf Aniso) Radeon 9700 Pro (4X AA/8X Qual Aniso) GeForce FX 5800 Ultra (4X AA/8X Bal Aniso) Radeon 9700 (4X AA/8X Qual Aniso) GeForce FX 5800 (4X AA/8X Bal Ansio) 59.7 54.3 46.2 44.6 40.4 36.4 | 0 | 12 | 24 | 36 | 48 | 60 | 72

When it comes to the minimum frame rates, the Radeon 9700 Pro holds on to its performance advantage with even the regular Radeon 9700 giving the GeForce FX a hard time.

Serious Sam 2 AA/Aniso Performance 1600x1200x32 Radeon 9700 Pro (4X AA/8X Perf Aniso) Radeon 9700 (4X AA/8X Perf Aniso) Radeon 9700 Pro (4X AA/8X Qual Aniso) GeForce FX 5800 Ultra (4X AA/8X Bal Aniso) Radeon 9700 (4X AA/8X Qual Aniso) GeForce FX 5800 (4X AA/8X Bal Ansio) 57.5 49.9 44.2 41 38.3 34.9 | 0 | 12 | 23 | 35 | 46 | 58 | 69

At 1600x1200 it is very difficult to beat ATI's mature driver set and 256-bit memory bus, every extra bit of memory bandwidth counts and it doesn't seem as if NVIDIA's always-on color compression is doing them much of a service in outperforming ATI here.

Serious Sam 2 AA/Aniso Performance Minimum FPS - 1600x1200x32 Radeon 9700 Pro (4X AA/8X Perf Aniso) Radeon 9700 (4X AA/8X Perf Aniso) Radeon 9700 Pro (4X AA/8X Qual Aniso) GeForce FX 5800 Ultra (4X AA/8X Bal Aniso) Radeon 9700 (4X AA/8X Qual Aniso) GeForce FX 5800 (4X AA/8X Bal Ansio) 44.6 39 32.5 31.4 28.1 27.1 | 0 | 9 | 18 | 27 | 36 | 45 | 54