Monthly drivers report and popular 3D
accelerators comparison

3Digest Monthly is a project of iXBT.com and Digit-Life.com that offers you various reports about performance of a host of graphics cards with their respective Windows XP drivers in the latest month. There is a three-month cycle:

1. First month: Summary performance charts of ALL graphics cards (40-50 of them) and their latest drivers available 20 days before the Digest is released.
2. Second month: Examination of scalability or some other graphics card characteristic based on a selection of 30 cards.
3. Third month: Additional examinations based on the same card selection.

Then the cycle repeats.

This very issue is dedicated to scalability, therefore we haven't tested drivers released from the 10th of December 2004 to the 10th of January 2005.

Traditionally our 3Digest informs you about the best price/performance ratios available in the market. Another very important part of any issue is cards' 3D graphics quality shown on the example of a wide selection of games.

It's our 56th issue of 3Digest.

NOTE: This issue is dedicated to examining the dependency of performance on CPU (and system) clock rates in the PURE PERFORMANCE mode WITHOUT ANTIALIASING AND ANISOTROPY!

NeXT month we'll offer you the results of the similar examination WITH antialiasing and anisotropy.

SINCE WE HAVEN'T TESTED NEW DRIVERS THIS TIME, WE OFFER YOU GRAPHICS CARD RATINGS FROM THE PREVIOUS DECEMBER 2004 3DIGEST ISSUE.

January 2005

The calmest month for any 3D accelerator. Lots of holidays and almost no news. Just the first consignments of RADEON X850 and X800XL went on sale. Besides, for our lab we obtained Gigabyte 3D1 graphics card based on two GeForce 6600 GT GPUs.

MORE CONTENTS

1. Testbed configurations and test software
2. Tested videocards list
3. What's new in 3Digest
4. Test summary diagrams and digest bottom line
5. 3D accelerator rating calculations for the end of the month
6. Screenshot gallery
7. Games quality section

1. Testbed configuration

• 1.1. System on Athlon 64 3200+:
  • AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (L2=1024K);
  • ASUS K8V SE Deluxe motherboard on VIA K8T800;
  • 1 GB DDR SDRAM PC3200;
  • Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB SATA HDD.

• 1.2. System on Athlon 64 (939Socket)
  • AMD Athlon 3500+ (overclocked up to 2400MHz) (L2=512K);
  • ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe motherboard on NVIDIA nForce4 SLI;
  • 1 GB DDR SDRAM 400MHz;
  • WD Caviar SE WD1600JD 160GB SATA HDD.

• 1.3. System on Athlon XP 2400+:
  • AMD Athlon XP 2400+ CPU;
  • VIA reference board on VIA KT600;
  • 1 GB DDR SDRAM PC3200;
  • Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB SATA HDD.

Testbeds have Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2, Directx 9.0c installed. ViewSonic P810 (21") and IIYAMA Vision Master Pro 514 (22") monitors were used.

NOTE!

To examine card scalability, besides the testbed 1.3, we used the unblocked multiplyer of the testbed 1.2 CPU, all in all obtaining 4 clock rate gradations.

So:

• AGP platform
  • Testbed 1.1
  • Testbed 1.3

• PCIE platform
  • Testbed 1.2: 1200 MHz CPU
  • Testbed 1.2: 1600 MHz CPU
  • Testbed 1.2: 2000 MHz CPU
  • Testbed 1.2: 2400 MHz CPU

The list of benchmarks is here.

2. Graphics card list

Below is a list of graphics cards that we tested linked to respective 3Digest feature-description pages.

Drivers released by videocard manufacturers are not taken into account (unless written by GPU manufacturers) because there are very many of them and it's impossible to test them all.

You can see the quality of 3D graphics produced by tested cards in our monthly updated Screenshot gallery.

Card list:

1. ATI RADEON 9600 SE 128MB 64bit DDR 4ns (325/400 MHz)
2. ATI RADEON 9600 Pro 128MB DDR 2.8ns (400/600 MHz)
3. ATI RADEON 9600 256MB DDR 5ns (325/400 MHz)
4. ATI RADEON 9600 XT 128MB DDR 3.3ns (500/600 MHz)
5. ATI RADEON X600 XT PCX 128MB DDR 2.5ns (500/760 MHz)
6. ATI RADEON 9800 Pro 128MB DDR 2.8ns (380/680 MHz)
7. ATI RADEON X700 PCX 256MB DDR 2.8ns (400/700 MHz)
8. ATI RADEON X700 PRO PCX 256MB GDDR3 2.0ns (425/860 MHz)
9. ATI RADEON X800 XL PCX 256MB DDR3 2.0ns (400/1000 MHz)
10. ATI RADEON X800 Pro 256MB DDR3 2.0ns (475/900 MHz)
11. ATI RADEON X800 XT PE 256MB DDR3 1.6ns (520/1120 MHz)
12. ATI RADEON X800 XT 256MB DDR3 1.6ns (500/1000 MHz)
13. ATI RADEON X800 XT PCX 256MB DDR3 1.6ns (500/1000 MHz)
14. ATI RADEON X800 XT PE PCX 256MB DDR3 1.6ns (520/1120 MHz)
15. ATI RADEON X850 XT PE PCX 256MB DDR3 1.6ns (540/1180 MHz)
16. NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 LE 128MB DDR 5ns (250/400 MHz)
17. NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 128MB DDR 3.6ns (425/550 MHz)
18. NVIDIA GeForce FX 5950 Ultra 256MB DDR 2.0ns (475/950 MHz)
19. NVIDIA GeForce 6200 128MB DDR 3.6ns (300/550 MHz)
20. NVIDIA GeForce 6600 128MB DDR 3.6ns (300/550 MHz)
21. NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT 128MB GDDR3 2.0ns (500/1000 MHz)
22. NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT 128MB AGP GDDR3 2.0ns (500/900 MHz)
23. NVIDIA GeForce 6800 128MB DDR 2.8ns (325/700 MHz)
24. NVIDIA GeForce 6800LE 128MB DDR 2.8ns (325/700 MHz)
25. NVIDIA GeForce 6800 256MB GDDR3 2.0ns (350/1000 MHz)
26. NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT 128MB DDR 2.8ns (350/700 MHz)
27. NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 2.0ns (350/1000 MHz)
28. NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT PCX 256MB DDR3 2.0ns (350/1000 MHz)
29. NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra PCX 256MB DDR3 1.6ns (425/1100 MHz)
30. NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB DDR3 1.6ns (425/1100 MHz)
31. NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT SLI 2x128MB DDR3 2.0ns (2x500/1140 MHz) - Gigabyte 3D1

Archive (videocards, which info is no longer updated)

3. January 2005 news and current business

• 3.1. The following drivers were released from December 10, 2004 to January 10, 2004:
  
  
  • NVIDIA ForceWare for all NVIDIA cards:
    
    
    • Windows XP: 66.93, 71.24, 71.40;

    
    

  • ATI Catalyst for all ATI cards:
    
    
    • Windows XP: 6.497 (CATALYST 4.12; CATALYST 5.1 drivers were released a bit later)
      

• 3.2. This month we used 71.40 drivers for NVIDIA cards summaries; 6.497 drivers for ATI cards summaries.
  
  

4. Graphics card scalability charts for Windows XP for January 2005

All willing to build own charts are invited to download these Excel XP tables in RAR 3.0 or ZIP archives.

• 4.1. Far Cry, Research
  • AGP cards
    • 1024x768 (AGP cards)
    • 1280x1024 (AGP cards)
    • 1600x1200 (AGP cards)

  • PCI-E cards
    • 1024x768 (PCI-E cards)
    • 1280x1024 (PCI-E cards)
    • 1600x1200 (PCI-E cards)

  
  
  

• 4.2. Far Cry, Regulator
  • AGP cards
    • 1024x768 (AGP cards)
    • 1280x1024 (AGP cards)
    • 1600x1200 (AGP cards)

  • PCI-E cards
    • 1024x768 (PCI-E cards)
    • 1280x1024 (PCI-E cards)
    • 1600x1200 (PCI-E cards)

  
  
  

• 4.3. Far Cry, Pier
  • AGP cards
    • 1024x768 (AGP cards)
    • 1280x1024 (AGP cards)
    • 1600x1200 (AGP cards)

  • PCI-E cards
    • 1024x768 (PCI-E cards)
    • 1280x1024 (PCI-E cards)
    • 1600x1200 (PCI-E cards)

  
  
  

• 4.4. Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness
  • AGP cards
    • 1024x768 (AGP cards)
    • 1280x1024 (AGP cards)
    • 1600x1200 (AGP cards)

  • PCI-E cards
    • 1024x768 (PCI-E cards)
    • 1280x1024 (PCI-E cards)
    • 1600x1200 (PCI-E cards)

  
  
  

• 4.5. Half Life 2, iXBT01
  • AGP cards
    • 1024x768 (AGP cards)
    • 1280x1024 (AGP cards)
    • 1600x1200 (AGP cards)

  • PCI-E cards
    • 1024x768 (PCI-E cards)
    • 1280x1024 (PCI-E cards)
    • 1600x1200 (PCI-E cards)

  
  
  

• 4.6. Half Life 2, iXBT02
  • AGP cards
    • 1024x768 (AGP cards)
    • 1280x1024 (AGP cards)
    • 1600x1200 (AGP cards)

  • PCI-E cards
    • 1024x768 (PCI-E cards)
    • 1280x1024 (PCI-E cards)
    • 1600x1200 (PCI-E cards)

  
  
  

• 4.7. Half Life 2, iXBT03
  • AGP cards
    • 1024x768 (AGP cards)
    • 1280x1024 (AGP cards)
    • 1600x1200 (AGP cards)

  • PCI-E cards
    • 1024x768 (PCI-E cards)
    • 1280x1024 (PCI-E cards)
    • 1600x1200 (PCI-E cards)

  
  
  

• 4.8. DOOM III
  • AGP cards
    • 1024x768 (AGP cards)
    • 1280x1024 (AGP cards)
    • 1600x1200 (AGP cards)

  • PCI-E cards
    • 1024x768 (PCI-E cards)
    • 1280x1024 (PCI-E cards)
    • 1600x1200 (PCI-E cards)

  
  
  

• 4.9. 3DMark05 MARKS
  • AGP cards
    • 1024x768 (AGP cards)
    • 1280x1024 (AGP cards)
    • 1600x1200 (AGP cards)

  • PCI-E cards
    • 1024x768 (PCI-E cards)
    • 1280x1024 (PCI-E cards)
    • 1600x1200 (PCI-E cards)

  
  
  

• 4.10. Archive (information from the previous 3Digests absent in this issue)
  
  

5. 3D graphics card ratings for the late DECEMBER 2004

All willing to conduct his own rating calculations with his own values are invited to download this Excel XP table in RAR 3.0 or ZIP format.

Prospect and usability ratings were calculated platformwise, i.e. there are two rating series.

The method of rating calculation is described here.

Calculations were conducted considering the following assumptions:

1. Windows XP is used;
2. Percentage of performance and quality demand ratio:
   • performance priority - 60%
   • quality priority - 40%

3. ONLY 1600x1200@32bpp resolution was used for the prospect rating;
4. Usability ratings are separated into the three sections. Each rating features its own eXPenses for system upgrade. All this is considered in the APG parameter that is $100 for Low-End, $250 for Middle-End, and $500 for High-End. We believe that if a user wants to purchase a very eXPensive and powerful accelerator, he understands the inanity of installing it into a Low-End PC. So we separated the usability rating for different PC levels. The fourth rating implies eXPenses only for the graphics card itself.

Athlon64 3200+ (VIA K8T800):

Usability rating (rating from the previous 3Digest is in parentheses):

Usability rating: card price + $500

Usability rating: card price + $250

Usability rating: card price + $100

Usability rating: just card price

Prospect rating (the previous rating is in parenthesis):

Usability rating (rating from the previous 3Digest is in parentheses):

Usability rating: card price + $500

Usability rating: card price + $250

Usability rating: card price + $100

Usability rating: just card price

Prospect rating (the previous rating is in parenthesis):

Ingame quality

6. Games screenshot gallery

All test screenshots are compiled into a gallery where you can qualify the work of a chosen videocard and compare it to the reference images taken on ATI Radeon 9500. All shots were taken at the same 1024x768 resolution at the maximum quality. Screenshot gallery

7. Games artefacts gallery (for DECEMBER 2004)

Games quality section

Vitaly Milov (vmilov@iXBT.com)	Danil Gridasov (degust@iXBT.com)

and Andrey Vorobiev(Anvakams@iXBT.com)