3Digest: April 2007

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Monthly drivers report and popular 3D
accelerators comparison

Monthy 3Digest is the project of iXBT.com and Digit-Life.com dedicated to informing you about the performance of a large number of graphics cards under Windows XP in the past month.

This issue is dedicated drivers released from the 15th of March 2007 to the 15th of April 2007. Traditionally our 3Digest informs you about the best price/performance ratios available in the market. Another very important part of any 3Digest is cards' 3D graphics quality shown on the example of a wide selection of games.

It's our 83th issue of 3Digest.

April 2007

We have added test results for GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB, GeForce 8600 GTS, GeForce 8800 Ultra, and overclocked GeForce 8800 GTX.

Attention! This digest contains benchmarking results for PCI-E cards only! The final AGP benchmarking was conducted in March 2006!

1. Testbed configuration

Intel Core2 Duo (775 Socket) based machine
- Intel Core2 Duo Extreme X6800 (2930 MHz) (L2=4096K) CPU;
- EVGA nForce 680i SLI motherboard on NVIDIA nForce 680i;
- 2GB DDR2 SDRAM Corsair 1142MHz (CAS (tCL)=5; RAS to CAS delay (tRCD)=5; Row Precharge (tRP)=5; tRAS=15);
- WD Caviar SE WD1600JD 160GB SATA HDD.

All testbeds have Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2, DirectX 9.0c installed. Dell 3007WFP monitor was used. (30").

The list of benchmarks is here

2. Videocard list

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

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

Cards list:

Archive (videocards, information on which is no longer updated)

3. April 2007 news and matters

Added a number of new graphics cards (marked "NEW").

3.1. The following drivers were released from March 15, 2007 to April 15, 2007:
- NVIDIA ForceWare for all NVIDIA cards:
  - Windows XP: 158.22 for GF8800 series;
  - Windows XP: 93.81 for GF6xxx/7xxx series;
  - Windows XP: 158.22 for GF8600/8500/8400 series;
- ATI Catalyst for all ATI cards:
  - Windows XP: CATALYST 7.4
3.2. This month we used 158.19 drivers for NVIDIA-based card summaries, 7.4 drivers for ATI-based card summaries.

4. Summary charts of graphics card performance with the latest drivers available at the moment of testing in April 2007

All willing to see the complete results in Excel 2003 format can download this RAR 3.0 or this ZIP archive.

If you are familiar with 3D graphics, you will be able to draw all the conclusions yourself after looking at the charts provided. Those interested in our judgement of test results should see reviews dedicated to specific GPUs (see our 3D graphics section). And for newbies and those who has just started choosing a graphics card we'll provide some more detailed explanations.

First of all, you should take a look at our brief references of modern graphics card series and their respective GPUs. Note clock rates, shader support and pipeline architecture.

Reference for ATI RADEON X1300-1600-1800-1900 series

Reference for NVIDIA GeForce 7300-7600-7800-7900-8800 series

Secondly, in our 3D graphics section all newbies can read about the basics of 3D (this knowledge will be required anyway, because you'll surely try to adjust some game settings: textures, lighting, etc.) Besides, newbies should read separate reviews dedicated to new products. There are just two GPU vendors: ATI (recently merged with AMD under its brand) and NVIDIA. Thus, all information is generally separated in two parts.

Thirdly, let's see the charts and make conclusions.

Attention! Due to some technical issues some test results became interchanged. Tests of GeForce 8800 GTS 320 / 640MB at 2560x1600 were conducted separately. And due to a mistake in input of numbers for SOME tests the results of 8800 GTS 320MB became interchanged with those of 8800 GTS 640MB and vice versa. We emphasize, this is ONLY about 2560x1600 and SOME tests. All other results are in their right places. We'll fix these errors next digest. Note that we've already fixed them in test result tables.

4.1. Far Cry, Research (No HDR)
- All resolutions on one page, No AA, No AF
- All resolutions on one page, AA 4x + AF 16x (High Quality for ATI)
4.2. Far Cry, Research (HDR)
- All resolutions on one page, No AA, No AF
- All resolutions on one page, AA 4x + AF 16x (High Quality for ATI)
4.3. Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (No HDR)
- All resolutions on one page, No AA, No AF
- All resolutions on one page, AA 4x + AF 16x (High Quality for ATI)
4.4. Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (HDR)
- All resolutions on one page, No AA, No AF
- All resolutions on one page, AA 4x + AF 16x (High Quality for ATI)
4.5. Call Of Juarez
- All resolutions on one page, No AA, No AF
- All resolutions on one page, AA 4x + AF 16x (High Quality for ATI)
4.6. Prey
- All resolutions on one page, No AA, No AF
- All resolutions on one page, AA 4x + AF 16x (High Quality for ATI)
4.7. 3DMark05 MARKS
- All resolutions on one page, No AA, No AF
- All resolutions on one page, AA 4x + AF 16x (High Quality for ATI)
4.8. Company Of Heroes
- All resolutions on one page, No AA, No AF
- All resolutions on one page, AA 4x + AF 16x (High Quality for ATI)
4.9. F.E.A.R.
- All resolutions on one page, No AA, No AF
- All resolutions on one page, AA 4x + AF 16x (High Quality for ATI)
4.10. Serious Sam II (No HDR)
- All resolutions on one page, No AA, No AF
- All resolutions on one page, AA 4x + AF 16x (High Quality for ATI)
4.11. Serious Sam II (HDR)
- All resolutions on one page, No AA, No AF
- All resolutions on one page, AA 4x + AF 16x (High Quality for ATI)
4.12. 3DMark 06, Shader Model 2.0 MARKS
- All resolutions on one page, No AA, No AF
- All resolutions on one page, AA 4x + AF 16x (High Quality for ATI)
4.13. 3DMark 06, Shader Model 3.0 MARKS
- All resolutions on one page, No AA, No AF
- All resolutions on one page, AA 4x + AF 16x (High Quality for ATI)
4.14. Archive (information from the previous 3Digests absent in this issue)
4.15. Notes on graphics cards performance with the latest drivers:
- If a particular card is not in the summary, i.e. its results are either 0, or 1, it means the given benchmark hasn't work or has worked incorrectly with this card.
- We must especially underline the bad quality of WinXP drivers for NVIDIA 8800 series. For example, they do not allow DVI scalability of resolution. Besides, SLI still doesn't work in Call Of Juarez. Therefore SLI configurations have performance results even lower than those of single cards in these tests.
- If you imagine a line connecting ends of columns representing test results on a chart, you can judge if a game is critical to a card or a CPU. If this curve is "convex" and many cards perform similarly, it means at this resolution and under this load performance is bottlenecked by system resources, not graphics card potential. If, vice versa, the curve is "concave" and performance drops quickly as card potential reduces, it means the game puts heavy load on graphics cards and depends exclusively on their potential.

5. 3D accelerator ratings calculations for the end of the month

Calculations were based on gaming benchmark results as well as the results from 3DMark06 new tests (ATI CATALYST 6.12, NVIDIA ForceWare 96.97).

Anyone who wants to conduct his own rating calculations with his own values may download this Excel table (Office XP) in RAR 3.0 or ZIP format.

The method of rating calculation is described here.

Calculations were conducted considering the following assumptions:

Percentage of performance and quality demand ratio:
- performance priority - 60%
- quality priority - 40%
Only the HIGHEST resolution available in games was used to calculate prospect ratings.
The usability rating indicates performance and features of a card (numerator) related to its price (denominator).

According to your wishes, we separated ratings into two groups: the first gathers all benchmarks, and the second contains only the gaming tests without m3DMark05/06. Disbelieving the synthetic tests, many think the second group is of higher importance.

Core2 Duo X6800 platform:

"Usability" Rating:

GAMING ONLY usability rating

#	Card	Usability Rating	Prospect Rating	Price
01.	8800 GTS 320MB, 512/1600	728	1057
02.	X1900 XT 512MB, 625/1450	694	825
03.	X1950 PRO 256MB, 580/1400	688	690
04.	X1900 XTX 512MB, 650/1550	657	851
05.	8800 GTS 640MB, 512/1600	631	1086
06.	X1950 PRO 256MB, 635/1485	626	711
07.	X1950 XT 512MB, 625/1800	593	870
08.	X1650 PRO 256MB 590/1380	567	428
09.	X1950 PRO 512MB, 575/1370	567	730
10.	X1300 XT 256MB 500/800	560	359
11.	8800 GTX 768MB, 575/1800	552	1302
12.	EVGA 8800 GTX 768MB, 625/2000	519	1372
13.	X1650 XT 256MB, 600/1400	519	527
14.	X1900 XT 256MB, 625/1450	516	787
15.	X1650 XT 256MB, 625/1540	506	549
16.	8600 GTS 256MB, 675/2000	460	710
17.	8600 GTS 256MB, 720/2200	448	722
18.	X1950 XTX 512MB, 650/2000	437	880
19.	X1800 GTO 256MB 500/1000	382	547
20.	8800 Ultra 768MB, 612/2160	378	1383
21.	X1300 PRO 256MB, 600/800	367	299
22.	8800 GTX SLI 2x768MB, 575/1800	353	1580
23.	7900 GS 256MB, 540/1500	328	502
24.	7600 GS 256MB, 450/1100	322	366
25.	7900 GS 256MB, 480/1400	319	485
26.	7900 GS 256MB, 450/1320	316	468
27.	7600 GT 256MB, 560/1400	307	400
28.	7600 GS 256MB, 400/800	295	327
29.	7950 GT 256MB 600/1430	286	535
30.	X1300 256MB, 450/550	269	243
31.	7600 GS 512MB, 550/950	267	366
32.	7950 GT 512MB 550/1400	251	525
33.	X1300 512MB, 450/500	243	252
34.	BFG 7950GX2 2x512MB, 500/1200	171	638
35.	7950GX2 SLI 2x2x512MB, 500/1200	101	728

GENERAL usability rating

#	Card	Usability Rating	Prospect Rating	Price
01.	8800 GTS 320MB, 512/1600	1873	1719
02.	X1950 PRO 256MB, 580/1400	1661	1080
03.	X1900 XT 512MB, 625/1450	1657	1285
04.	X1900 XTX 512MB, 650/1550	1569	1325
05.	8800 GTS 640MB, 512/1600	1520	1700
06.	X1950 PRO 256MB, 635/1485	1509	1111
07.	X1950 XT 512MB, 625/1800	1422	1362
08.	X1650 PRO 256MB 590/1380	1398	675
09.	X1950 PRO 512MB, 575/1370	1372	1148
10.	X1300 XT 256MB 500/800	1365	563
11.	8800 GTX 768MB, 575/1800	1334	2042
12.	EVGA 8800 GTX 768MB, 625/2000	1281	2180
13.	X1650 XT 256MB, 600/1400	1243	820
14.	X1900 XT 256MB, 625/1450	1234	1225
15.	X1650 XT 256MB, 625/1540	1222	860
16.	8600 GTS 256MB, 675/2000	1096	1108
17.	8600 GTS 256MB, 720/2200	1060	1124
18.	X1950 XTX 512MB, 650/2000	1043	1370
19.	8800 GTX SLI 2x768MB, 575/1800	929	2588
20.	X1800 GTO 256MB 500/1000	897	842
21.	X1300 PRO 256MB, 600/800	887	465
22.	8800 Ultra 768MB, 612/2160	860	2106
23.	7900 GS 256MB, 540/1500	724	752
24.	7600 GS 256MB, 450/1100	714	547
25.	7900 GS 256MB, 480/1400	702	725
26.	7900 GS 256MB, 450/1320	695	701
27.	7600 GT 256MB, 560/1400	682	601
28.	7600 GS 256MB, 400/800	654	491
29.	X1300 256MB, 450/550	645	379
30.	7950 GT 256MB 600/1430	635	804
31.	X1300 512MB, 450/500	600	400
32.	7600 GS 512MB, 550/950	597	551
33.	7950 GT 512MB 550/1400	556	790
34.	BFG 7950GX2 2x512MB, 500/1200	394	974
35.	7950GX2 SLI 2x2x512MB, 500/1200	246	1145

"Prospect" Rating:

GAMING ONLY prospect rating

#	Card	Usability Rating	Prospect Rating	Price
01.	8800 GTX SLI 2x768MB, 575/1800	353	1580
02.	8800 Ultra 768MB, 612/2160	378	1383
03.	EVGA 8800 GTX 768MB, 625/2000	519	1372
04.	8800 GTX 768MB, 575/1800	552	1302
05.	8800 GTS 640MB, 512/1600	631	1086
06.	8800 GTS 320MB, 512/1600	728	1057
07.	X1950 XTX 512MB, 650/2000	437	880
08.	X1950 XT 512MB, 625/1800	593	870
09.	X1900 XTX 512MB, 650/1550	657	851
10.	X1900 XT 512MB, 625/1450	694	825
11.	X1900 XT 256MB, 625/1450	516	787
12.	X1950 PRO 512MB, 575/1370	567	730
13.	7950GX2 SLI 2x2x512MB, 500/1200	101	728
14.	8600 GTS 256MB, 720/2200	448	722
15.	X1950 PRO 256MB, 635/1485	626	711
16.	8600 GTS 256MB, 675/2000	460	710
17.	X1950 PRO 256MB, 580/1400	688	690
18.	BFG 7950GX2 2x512MB, 500/1200	171	638
19.	X1650 XT 256MB, 625/1540	506	549
20.	X1800 GTO 256MB 500/1000	382	547
21.	7950 GT 256MB 600/1430	286	535
22.	X1650 XT 256MB, 600/1400	519	527
23.	7950 GT 512MB 550/1400	251	525
24.	7900 GS 256MB, 540/1500	328	502
25.	7900 GS 256MB, 480/1400	319	485
26.	7900 GS 256MB, 450/1320	316	468
27.	X1650 PRO 256MB 590/1380	567	428
28.	7600 GT 256MB, 560/1400	307	400
29.	7600 GS 256MB, 450/1100	322	366
30.	7600 GS 512MB, 550/950	267	366
31.	X1300 XT 256MB 500/800	560	359
32.	7600 GS 256MB, 400/800	295	327
33.	X1300 PRO 256MB, 600/800	367	299
34.	X1300 512MB, 450/500	243	252
35.	X1300 256MB, 450/550	269	243

GENERAL prospect rating

#	Card	Usability Rating	Prospect Rating	Price
01.	8800 GTX SLI 2x768MB, 575/1800	929	2588
02.	EVGA 8800 GTX 768MB, 625/2000	1281	2180
03.	8800 Ultra 768MB, 612/2160	860	2106
04.	8800 GTX 768MB, 575/1800	1334	2042
05.	8800 GTS 320MB, 512/1600	1873	1719
06.	8800 GTS 640MB, 512/1600	1520	1700
07.	X1950 XTX 512MB, 650/2000	1043	1370
08.	X1950 XT 512MB, 625/1800	1422	1362
09.	X1900 XTX 512MB, 650/1550	1569	1325
10.	X1900 XT 512MB, 625/1450	1657	1285
11.	X1900 XT 256MB, 625/1450	1234	1225
12.	X1950 PRO 512MB, 575/1370	1372	1148
13.	7950GX2 SLI 2x2x512MB, 500/1200	246	1145
14.	8600 GTS 256MB, 720/2200	1060	1124
15.	X1950 PRO 256MB, 635/1485	1509	1111
16.	8600 GTS 256MB, 675/2000	1096	1108
17.	X1950 PRO 256MB, 580/1400	1661	1080
18.	BFG 7950GX2 2x512MB, 500/1200	394	974
19.	X1650 XT 256MB, 625/1540	1222	860
20.	X1800 GTO 256MB 500/1000	897	842
21.	X1650 XT 256MB, 600/1400	1243	820
22.	7950 GT 256MB 600/1430	635	804
23.	7950 GT 512MB 550/1400	556	790
24.	7900 GS 256MB, 540/1500	724	752
25.	7900 GS 256MB, 480/1400	702	725
26.	7900 GS 256MB, 450/1320	695	701
27.	X1650 PRO 256MB 590/1380	1398	675
28.	7600 GT 256MB, 560/1400	682	601
29.	X1300 XT 256MB 500/800	1365	563
30.	7600 GS 512MB, 550/950	597	551
31.	7600 GS 256MB, 450/1100	714	547
32.	7600 GS 256MB, 400/800	654	491
33.	X1300 PRO 256MB, 600/800	887	465
34.	X1300 512MB, 450/500	600	400
35.	X1300 256MB, 450/550	645	379

GAME QUALITY SECTION

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 9500x1024 resolution at the maximum quality. Screenshot gallery

7. Game Artefacts Gallery

Games quality section

8. Game Quality Control Section

Game Quality Control Section

We thank all the companies that provided us with graphics cards and other equipment for our 3Digest, including:
"Zotac",
"BFG Russia" and personally Mikhail Proshletsov,
"EVGA Russia" and personally Victoria Nikolaeva,
Foxconn Russia,
MSI Russia,
Gainward,

HIS (Peter Yueng personally)
"NVIDIA Russia",
AMD Russia,
"Sapphire Technology Russia",
"ASUStek Russia",

The PSU for the testbed was kindly provided by HIPER

The Dell 3007WFP monitor was kindly provided by NVIDIA

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

Andrey Vorobiev (anvakams@ixbt.com)

16.05.2007