Fall 2003 Video Card Roundup Part I - ATI's Radeon 9800 XT
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on October 1, 2003 3:02 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
We’ll limit the talk about the new batch of $500 cards to the first few lines of this conclusion. The Radeon 9800 XT offers a marginal performance improvement over the regular Radeon 9800 Pro, definitely not worth upgrading to for current 9800 Pro owners.
As far as people looking to upgrade once for the long run, with new architectures due out in 6 months, a $500 investment today would be significantly more out of date than if you purchase a card right before a refresh. We rarely recommend that you buy the fastest performing card on the market; in fact the last time we did that was with the Radeon 9700 Pro – the impact of which is clearly not equaled by the Radeon 9800 XT (nor were we expecting it to). Whether spending $500 is worth it today is your call, but you can definitely get very similar performance out of a used Radeon 9700 Pro or even a non-Pro Radeon 9800 at much better price points. If money is no object, then we’re sure that ATI wouldn’t mind shipping a few more XTs in your direction.
We’re quite wary of recommending any of the current NVIDIA cards at this point, for two major reasons. First, with NV38 coming right around the corner any FX 5900 Ultra purchases wouldn’t be wise investments. Also, given the marginal performance improvements you can expect out of a 5% core clock increase, don’t have incredibly high expectations for the NV38. We can’t recommend the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra because NVIDIA has already indicated that NV36 (the 5600 Ultra’s successor) will be here shortly to replace it and should offer significantly greater performance. So if you’re looking to buy a video card right now, ATI is the way to go.
Looking at the stats, ATI clearly wins in 6 games, NVIDIA wins in 4 games and the two come very close in 5 games. Games such as Command & Conquer Generals: Ground Zero and Simcity 4: Rush Hour are examples where ATI clearly has the lead over NVIDIA and the argument could be made that ATI holds the lead because they optimize for all games, while NVIDIA just optimizes for benchmark titles. However, looking at games like Homeworld 2 and Neverwinter Nights you could make the exact opposite argument.
What’s clear is that both manufacturers optimize for the more popular games and the focus of optimizations is obviously greater on more visible games. With that said, we’re hoping that by expanding our test suite we will be able to encourage optimizations to make more games run better. We’ll see how the picture we’ve depicted here today changes as time goes on.
Although we did provide some insight into the “next generation” of games with scores from Halo, the real question on everyone’s mind is still Half Life 2 as well as Doom3. The performance crown under Doom3 is still in NVIDIA’s camp apparently, and although the latest drivers have closed the gap significantly, ATI is still ahead in Half Life 2. The numbers we’ve seen indicate that in most tests ATI only holds single digit percentage leads (< 5%), although in some cases ATI manages to pull ahead by double digits.
There’s much more to come, but for now we’ve given you quite a bit to chew on…
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Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
#81 and anyone who thinks it isnt important to benchmark dx9 performance:When you have 2 of the most highly anticipated games due for release over the next few months (halflife2 and doom3 for those who are asleep at the wheel) which both include dx9 features, Why in gods name would you buy a $500 card that _doesn't_ support dx9 features effectively? You would obviously have to be someone who isnt interested in having the best quality visuals you can get, and that is the exact opposite to the reason anyone would spend that amount of money on a video card in the first place. People want to see the best quality with the best performance! I simply cannot understand why someone would buy one of these expensive cards expecting that they would need to buy another equally or more expensive card as soon as such new dx9 titles appear... the simple truth is that you would have to be a fool with money to burn if you are prepared to pay $500 for a card that cannot perform well in new games that arrive after a couple of months
It's not a matter of whether dx9 features should be benchmarked, it's a matter of how.. I will avoid the whole benchmarking fiasco going on with regard to cheats, but why do you think people put such weight in programs which are designed to predict the performance of hardware on future games? People want cards that will perform well with _future_ games! It is just a pity there arent more tools available that can provide a RELIABLE prediction of how hardware will perform with these future games.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
#90If you're serious enough to inquire about BF1942...why not test it using TFC? I personally enjoy the soles of my Air Nikes, but come on, Reebok? I think I'd rather buy a pair of New Balance at my local shoe wharehouse. ATi has proven itself to be capable of running today's graphically intense games, just as smooth as STEAM is running HL. Thx for the tests, ATech.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
How about benchmarking the game with Battlefield 1942? I know it isn't one of the most graphically intensive games out there, but it is one of the most popular.Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
Any chance of benchmarking Soldier of Fortune 2, it may be old but still very popular online.Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
No discussion of image quality for each game?Other sites now do this as a matter of course as it is clear that Nvidia is taking shortcuts on quality to maximize speed. Hey I own a 4600 Gold Sample so I am not an ATI zealot, but I know where my next card purchase this year is going, that is clear from all the reviews I have seen.
I think its time you look beyond raw frame rates.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
id like to see doom 3 when availableAnonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
thanks #65\#77, that is very interestingit doesnt make a lot of sense as to why such scores would increase... unless it was some sort of driver 'bug'...
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
#73, who in their right mind would use the PCI slot next to the AGP slot? That's a surefire way to give you graphics card trouble.Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
I would suggest adding a few sports games to the mix; I myself would prefer Madden 2004. Thank you :)Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link
ADDD HL2