Testing Setup and Comparison Setup

Our testing setups for the X1950 XTX was very similar to that of our recent Quad SLI testing article.

ATI X1950 Test System Setup

CPU

Intel Core 2 Duo X6800 @ 2.93 GHz

Motherboards

Intel 975XBX

Memory 

Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C4

Hard Drive

Western Digital Raptor 150 GB – Review

Sound Card

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Value

Video Card

X1950 XTX
X1950 XTX CrossFire Edition

Video Drivers

R580plus Beta

DirectX Version

DX 9.0c

Operating System

Windows XP Professional SP1

Quad SLI Test System Setup

CPU

Intel Core 2 Duo X6800 @ 2.93 GHz

Motherboards

Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe

Memory 

Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C4

Hard Drive

Western Digital Raptor 150 GB – Review

Sound Card

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Value

Video Card

BFG Technologies 7950 GX2 Review
XFX GeForce 7950 GX2

Video Drivers

91.37

DirectX Version

DX 9.0c

Operating System

Windows XP Professional SP1

Benchmarks

  • 3DMark06
  • Battlefield 2
  • Call of Duty 2
  • FEAR
  • HL2: Lost Coast
  • Prey

You will see two sets of graphs in our individual benchmark pages.  The first set will compare the new Radeon X1950 XTX to the top end card from NVIDIA, the GeForce 7950 GX2.  I also threw in a set of results from the X1950 XTX CrossFire configuration as well, so we can see how well the dual-card configuration scales in CrossFire mode.  The second set of graphs looks at how the X1950 XTX CrossFire configuration compares with the NVIDIA Quad SLI (dual 7950 GX2s) configuration we tested earlier in the month. 

If you’ve read our Quad SLI testing, you’ll know that since the NVIDIA Quad SLI setup has some limitations on it due to the lack of four back buffers in the DX9 API, we’ve had to make some changes to the standard test runs. 

For our testing, I played and recorded results from three different resolutions: 1600×1200, 2048×1536 and 2560×1600.  The 1600×1200 resolution is the bare minimum resolution you should be running with hardware this expensive or this powerful — if you are running lower, then you are wasting your money.  2048×1536 is a 4:3 ratio resolution that is found on many higher-end CRT monitors and has a total of 3.14 million pixels on screen.  This resolution is actually a bit more straining than 1920×1200 (the most common 16:10 resolution which has 2.3 million pixels) so performance results here are a worst-case scenario for basic widescreen gaming, if nothing else.  Finally the 16:10 widescreen 2560×1600 resolution is the beast, requiring the GPUs to render over 4.0 million pixels; it also happens to be the native resolution of our 30″ Dell 3007 monitor.

For image quality, we never tested with out some form of antialiasing (AA) and anisotropic filtering (AF) enabled either in-game or in the ATI / NVIDIA control panel.  Where possible, we used the in-game 4xAA and 8xAF settings.  However due to the D3D limitation mentioned above on the Quad SLI setup, we enabled 8xSLIAA (NVIDIA) and 10xSuperAA (ATI) in the contol panel with in-game AF settings.  SLIAA from NVIDIA and SuperAA from ATI are methods of increasing image quality that in fact has each card rendering the exact same frame, but with slightly offset antialiasing patterns.  The two seperate frames are then combined by the master card into a single image, thus effectively offering the user 8xAA image quality. 

NVIDIA’s and ATI’s multi-card antialiasing methods differ slightly, and as such, comparing them directly is a bit more difficult.  In my testing and analysis, the 8xSLIAA from NVIDIA is most closely matched by the 10xSuperAA from ATI due to the methods in which the samples are created.  You can get more information on the exact details of SLIAA and SuperAA by looking back at our X1900 XTX CrossFire review

It is important to note that the ATI CrossFire solution does not suffer from this D3D limitation.  I am comparing the SuperAA methods from ATI to the SLIAA methods from Quad SLI in an attempt to show the two platforms in equal image qualities.  Even though we couldn’t run standard 4xAA and 8xAF settings in many games on Quad SLI, we could in all titles with the X1950 CrossFire.  So I have included the standard image quality CrossFire results in with the SuperAA CrossFire results and SLIAA Quad SLI results so you can see how much of a performance delta there is between these competing game enhancement options.

« PreviousNext »