AMDMB.com – Video Card Round-up #2
ATi & Nvidia Video Card Roundup #2
This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.
Over a month ago we published a comparative video card article featuring the Radeon 9500, a soft-modded Radeon 9700, a GF4 Ti4800SE, a FX5200 and FX5600. Today we are updating that article with results from the latest NVIDIA high-end card: the FX5900 Ultra 256MB. Seeing that all other cards tested are $80-230 USD, one would think that an FX5900 Ultra priced at $430 would simply win every benchmark. But as we will see very shortly the results are mixed and there is certainly room for improvement on NVIDIA’s part.
The Candidates
Radeon 9700 | Radeon 9500 | FX5900
Ultra |
FX5600 | FX5200 | Ti4800SE | |
Manufacturer | Soft-modded R9500 | Sapphire Tech. | NVIDIA | MSI | MSI | MSI |
Memory (MB) | 128 | 128 | 256 | 128 | 128 | 128 |
Memory Interface (bits) | 256 | 128 | 256 | 128 | 128 | 128 |
Memory Type | DDR-I | DDR-I | DDR-I | DDR-I | DDR-I | DDR-I |
Memory Bandwidth (GB/s) | 17.6 | 8.8 | 27.2 | 11.2 | 6.4 | 8.8 |
Manufacturing Process (microns) | 0.15 | 0.15 | 0.13 | 0.13 | 0.15 | 0.15 |
Core Clock (MHz) | 275 | 275 | 450 | 270 | 250 | 275 |
Memory
Clock (MHz)
|
270 | 270 | 425 | 275 | 200 | 275 |
Street Price (USD) | ~$230 | ~$120 |
~$400 | ~$140 | ~$80 | ~$150 |
Category Range | Mid-High | Mid | Highest | Mid | Low/Budget | Mid |
Benchmark System
Motherboard | MSI KT4 Ultra (VIA KT400 chipset) |
Processor | XP 1800+ @ 166×10 (1660 MHz) |
RAM | 512MB PC2700 (2-3-3-6T-Fast) |
Hard drive | Western Digital 120GB WD1200BB |
Networking | LinkSys LNE 530TX |
Sound | Turtle Beach Santa Cruz |
Operating System | Windows 2000 Pro + SP4 |
NVIDIA Driver | Detonator v45.23 |
ATI Driver | Catalyst 3.5 |
Performance Tests
Real-Time Strategy | Age of Mythology |
Space Simulator | Freelancer |
Role Playing Game | The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind |
First Person Shooter | Unreal Tournament 2003. CTF-Face3 flyby |
Space Simulator | X2: The Threat. Rolling Demo. |
Synthetic Benchmark | 3DMark 2001 SE v330 |
Synthetic Benchmark | 3DMark 03 v330 |
Anti-aliasing Quality | The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind |
Anisotropic Quality | The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind |
Changes from Previous Round-up Article
Video Cards | Added results from FX5900 Ultra 256MB. |
NVIDIA Driver | Changed from v44.03 to v45.23 Detonator. |
Freelancer | Changed benchmark mission |
Unreal Tournament 2003 | Removed DM-Asbestos tests. Anisotropic filtering now controlled by LevelOfAnisotropy variable. |
X2: The Threat | New benchmark |
Image Quality | Changed from UT2K3 to Morrowind |
(see previous article here)
Nomenclature
- AA, Anti-aliasing
An algorithm that gives the illusion that an edge in 3D space is rendered with a finer grid than in reality (aka. “removes the jaggies”). AA is more important at lower resolutions since a rendered line has fewer pixels and therefore more jaggy. Higher the AA sampling level, the nicer and sharper edges appear, but usually at the cost of the hardware’s performance.
- ##xAA
Notation used to indicate an anti-aliasing sampling level. i.e. 2xAA means “Two times anti-aliasing sampling level”.
- AF, Anisotropic
Filtering
The sharpening of textures as it recedes away from the viewer. Higher the AF sampling level, the nicer and sharper textures appear in the distance, but usually at the cost of the hardware’s performance.
- ##xAF
Notation used to indicate an anisotropic filtering sampling level. i.e. 2xAF means “Two times anisotropic filtering level”.
- AAxAF
Notation used to indicate an anti-aliasing/anisotropic filtering pair. Example, “2×4” means that anti-aliasing is set to 2x and anisotropic filtering set to 4x.
- FPS, Frames
per second
The number of frames rendered by the video hardware per second. Higher the number, the smoother things appear. Ideally you want this number to be as high as possible, but in some cases consumers prefer to have higher details for a nicer image and sacrifice some performance.
I can’t see the results, like
I can’t see the results, like the graphs…