Test Configuration
This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.
Our benchmark system today features ATI’s and NVIDIA’s latest top-end chipsets, the Radeon 9800XT and the FX5950 Ultra respectively. I have also chosen to throw in the Radeon 9500 softmod as a point of reference so you can see where mid-range Radeon products would rank.
Motherboard | ABIT NF7-S rev 2.0 (nForce2-Ultra400 chipset) |
Processor | Athlon XP 3200+ |
RAM | 2×256 Corsair Platinum DDR400 (2-2-2-6) |
Hard drive | Western Digital 120GB WD1200BB |
Operating System | Windows XP + SP1 |
Video Cards | Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD |
NVIDIA Driver | ForceWare 52.16 |
ATI Driver | Catalyst 3.9 |
Synthetic Tests
Synthetic Tests is what we’ve all come to know as a “benchmark”. They are fabricated graphical events that are used to simulate a consumer’s experience with graphics hardware. However, synthetic benchmarks are a poor representation of what is being experienced in reality, but are useful for making good concrete comparisons of cards on similarly configured systems. Tests like Aquamark 3, and Unreal Tournament 2003, though based on real games and real game engines, are synthetic since the events are fabricated and never controlled by the user.
Aquamark
3 |
3DMark
03 v340 |
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ViewPerf
7.1 (Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation) |
Unreal
Tournament 2003 |
Game Performance Tests
The results in this section of the review are taken from actual game play. FRAPS was used to measure the frame rate as I played each game on each piece of hardware. We’ve been doing this for a long time here and I’m happy to see more hardware sites spending the time to do the same.
However, because the numbers are recorded in actual in-game sessions, the numbers recorded may not be what you’ve come to expect from a standard benchmark (i.e. synthetic test). There will be instances where the numbers recorded don’t follow a “nice” trend line or exhibit some minor deviations. This is to be expected since each test run on a card in any given game will not be 100% identical to previous tests (like in a synthetic benchmark). We endeavor to reproduce the best results in any given instance and minimize these anomalies.
Age
of Mythology: The Titans (Ensemble Studios, Microsoft) |
Freelancer (Digital Anvil, Microsoft) |
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Halo:
Combat Evolved (Bungie/GearBox, Microsoft) |
Homeworld
2 (Relic Entertainment, Vivendi Universal) |
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Jedi
Knight: Jedi Academy |
The
Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Bethesda Softworks, Ubi Soft) |
Subjective Tests
Subjective tests is where I use my own eyes to compare image quality for different settings on a given piece of hardware. They are subjective because the comments and conclusions I make are based on my own personal experience and may not reflect what you perceive. This is why we provide links to the images used so you can judge for yourself.
Anti-aliasing
quality: |
Texturing
quality: Halo |