Fall 2003 Video Card Roundup Part I - ATI's Radeon 9800 XT
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on October 1, 2003 3:02 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
F1 Challenge ’99-‘02
We’ve had plenty of requests to benchmark with a racing simulation. When we were designing the new testing suit this was one of the first games that came to mind. The game is faced paced, has lots of graphics options, and could keep someone who is into F1 racing busy for weeks at a time. Combine all of that with a nice replay feature and we have a very useful benchmark. We just ran a lap at Australia and counted the framerate of the replay via FRAPS while following one of the drivers in the middle of the pack.
In this bench, everyone seems to being doing really well with the exception of the two lowest end cards. It seems very clear that this test is CPU bound, and we are looking forward to benching some CPUs with this game (as well as trying to push the highend cards with some higher resolution tests). There really is no clear winner, but NV38 does come out at the top of the pile.
When we flip the filter switch, the 9800 XT drops the least in frame rate, and takes a clear lead over NV38 and the 9800 Pro. Usually NVIDIA is the camp gaining the most ground after AA and AF are enabled, but it is very much worth noting that in this benchmark (and others we will point out later) AA and AF didn't really seem to work as well on the NVIDIA cards as it did on the ATI cards. There was some difference between the two, but we will have to do more research into this area before we can bring forth anything conclusive.
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Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
Cheatonators are NOT USING True Trilinear filtering in EVERY DX game.
WAKE UP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
who cares about Nvidia anymore.....
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
Why not stating if these games are rather OpenGL, DirectX 8 or DirectX 9 Games...Looks Like Nvidia is ahead in OpenGl games (Homeworld 2 and Never Winter Nights for example). And ATI in Direct X Games...
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
WOW, look at all those DX9 benchmarks!!!!!!LOL
He is using drivers that are NOT available to the public(51.75), there are no IQ test(yet) and he has already come to a conclusion.
Bye bye Anand you are over for me!!!!
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
Cheatonators 5x.xx are used in this review!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!REDICOULOUS as ANAnD
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
ANAND + NVIDIA = this review of shit.PERIODianmills - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
I've lost my faith in you as an impartial reviewer.The idea to do all tests at 1024x768 was just PLAIN STUPID.
The difference between the cards is way higher at higher resolutions... The results are much different at the other sites
Reading this interview one could conclude that the 9800xt is only 20-30% faster than the 9600pro
This is crap Anandtech. Either shape up or you've lost another reader.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
I would Like To see widely played Driving games like Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2,4X4 Evo 2not that driving Anadtech Put in.I Request Anadtech to atleast include Need for speed Hot Pursuit 2.
Jeff7181 - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
#121...Quake 3 is used because it's CPU limited, not limited by video cards... so if a new CPU can run the game faster, that's an indiciation of it's performance... new games like HL2 and Doom3 tend to be more video card dependant than CPU dependant.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
lock on:modern air combatcall of duty
NASCAR Thunder 2004
Need for speed:HP
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
I think it is becoming clear that ATI cards are superior in DX9 games, and are the way to go. Sad for us Geforce owners. Hopefully though, Nvidia will address this and come to market with their next gen cards (not this new batch...the next) having a lot better DX9 performance--for the entire DX9 spec.If I were buying a card now, it'd be an ATI....but I don't think Nvidia is going to sit still, their new cards will be competitive.