ATI RADEON X700XT (RV410): Part 1

Test results: performance comparison

We used the following test applications:

Return to Castle Wolfenstein (MultiPlayer) (id Software/Activision) - OpenGL, multitexturing, ixbt0703-demo, test settings - all to maximum, S3TC OFF, you can download configurations from here
Serious Sam: The Second Encounter v.1.05 (Croteam/GodGames) - OpenGL, multitexturing, ixbt0703-demo, test settings: quality, S3TC OFF
Quake3 Arena v.1.17 (id Software/Activision) - OpenGL, multitexturing, ixbt0703-demo, all test settings to maximum: detailing level – High, texture details – ¹4, S3TC OFF, curved surfaces are strongly smoothed using variables r_subdivisions «1» and r_lodCurveError «30000» (note that by default r_lodCurveError «250» !), the configurations can be downloaded here
Unreal Tournament 2003 v.2225 (Digital Extreme/Epic Games) - Direct3D, Vertex Shaders, Hardware T&L, Dot3, cube texturing, default quality
Code Creatures Benchmark Pro (CodeCult) - gaming test demonstrating how the video card works with DirectX 8.1, Shaders, HW T&L.
Unreal II: The Awakening (Legend Ent./Epic Games) - Direct3D, Vertex Shaders, Hardware T&L, Dot3, cube texturing, default quality
RightMark 3D v.0.4 (one of game scenes) - DirectX 8.1, Dot3, cube texturing, shadow buffers, vertex and pixel shaders (1.1, 1.4).
Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness v.49 (Core Design/Eldos Software) - DirectX 9.0, Paris5_4 demo. The tests were conducted with the quality set to maximum, only Depth of Fields PS20 was disabled.
HALO: Combat Evolved (Microsoft) - Direct3D, Vertex/Pixel Shaders 1.1/2.0, Hardware T&L, maximum quality
Half-Life2 (Valve/Sierra) - DirectX 9.0, demo (ixbt07. The tests were carried out with enabled anisotropic filtering as well as in heavy mode with ÀÀ and anisotropy.
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell v.1.2b (UbiSoft) - Direct3D, Vertex/Pixel Shaders 1.1/2.0, Hardware T&L, Very High settings; demo 1_1_2_Tbilisi
Call of Duty (MultiPlayer) (Infinity Ward/Activision) - OpenGL, multitexturing, ixbt0104demo, test settings - maximum, S3TC ON
FarCry 1.2 (Crytek/UbiSoft), DirectX 9.0, multitexturing, demo01 (research) (the game was started with the -DEVMODE option), test settings - Very High.
DOOM III (id Software/Activision), OpenGL, multitexturing, ixbt1-demo (33MB) test settings - High Quality. Configuration files were created with caching in order to optimize the game and to reduce the jerks. You can download them as well as a batch file to launch the benchmark here (35K)
3DMark03 v.340 (FutureMark/Remedy), DirectX 8.1/9.0, multitexturing; Game1/2/3/4, MARKS.

If you want to get the demo-benchmarks, which we use, contact the authors at their e-mails.

Quake3 Arena

The easiest modes without AA and anisotropy: this test is too old, it's almost 5 years old, and so it's hardly worth optimizations (because most testers gave up Q3 long ago). That's why we don't see almost any effect of the optimizations. X700XT and its competitor 6600GT are almost equal.

With enabled AA: Here X700XT demonstrates its advantage, because the weak point in 6600 is the lazy write to the frame buffer (8 pixels per 2 clocks).

With enabled anisotropy: nothing special happened, the competitors are equal.

The final heaviest mode with AA and anisotropy: 6600GT is still outscored because of AA.

Thus, on the whole:

RADEON X700XT versus RADEON 9800 PRO (ATHLON64 3400+) - general victory, it's defeated only in 1600x1200, where the lack of memory bandwidth with the 128-bit bus already have their effect
RADEON X700XT versus RADEON 9800 XT (ATHLON64 3400+) - the same results
RADEON X700XT versus GeForce 6600GT - considering the complexity of the test and recommendations to use ÀÀ, X700XT is victorious
RADEON X700XT versus GeForce 6800LE (ATHLON64 3400+) - the same results as with the comparison to 9800XT
RADEON X700XT with the LOW OPTIMIZATION versus RADEON X700XT WITHOUT OPTIMIZATIONS - nothing
RADEON X700XT with the HIGH OPTIMIZATION versus RADEON X700XT WITHOUT OPTIMIZATIONS - the same picture

Serious Sam: The Second Encounter

The easiest modes without AA and anisotropy: though this game is not in the list of games officially optimized by ATI programmers, we can see that enabled A.I. still produces considerable effect. What concerns the main competitors, X700XT is heavily defeated.

With enabled AA: optimizations amplify the effect (in X700, of course) and help score a victory over the NVIDIA product (though the main reason for success is the same as in the previous test). It's interesting to note that disabled optimizations in 6600 in this mode unexpectedly raised the speed at 1600x1200, instead of decreasing it. It's probably some bug in the driver or a feature of the application.

With enabled anisotropy: optimizations work wonders with X700 (by the way, their deactivation in 6600GT produces little effect in terms of speed), though on the whole it is still heavily defeated by 6600GT.

The final heaviest mode with AA and anisotropy: ambiguous result, because defeats and victories in AA and AF carried forward X700XT in high resolutions (where positions of 6600GT are weak because of AA), and the defeat in low resolutions, where the drop of speed of the NVIDIA product with ÀÀ is not that disastrous.

Thus, on the whole:

RADEON X700XT versus RADEON 9800 PRO (ATHLON64 3400+) - victory
RADEON X700XT versus RADEON 9800 XT (ATHLON64 3400+) - the same results
RADEON X700XT versus GeForce 6600GT - taking into account enabled AA and AF, we symbolically give the victory to X700XT
RADEON X700XT versus GeForce 6800LE (ATHLON64 3400+) - defeat
RADEON X700XT with the LOW OPTIMIZATION versus RADEON X700XT WITHOUT OPTIMIZATIONS - the huge effect with activated anisotropy! So we have an occasion to research the quality in this game in the next article
RADEON X700XT with the HIGH OPTIMIZATION versus RADEON X700XT WITHOUT OPTIMIZATIONS - the same picture

[ The previous part (2) ]

[ The next part (4) ]

We express our thanks to ATI
for the video cards provided to our lab.

Andrey Vorobiev (anvakams@ixbt.com)
Alexander Medvedev (unclesam@ixbt.com)

October 5, 2004

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