High End Performance Tests
And now, we come to the extreme tests. Unfortunately, we couldn't push our tests beyond 2048x1536 this time around, so the 7800 GTX SLI setup is still not stretching its legs to its full potential (which is extremely impressive). For our 1920x1440 test (a little larger than HDTV's 1080p), the trend continues from the previous tests. This time around, we see that the SLI setup is steadily becoming less CPU bound under our AA/AF test. Without turning these features on, we do still bump into the CPU limit, however.
And our current highest end test, 2048x1536 still shows an incredible frame rate under the 7800 GTX SLI. Increasing AA/AF settings still can't hurt it too much, and even the single 7800 GTX is playable with all the options on at the highest resolution test that we ran. The 6800 Ultra and X850 XT are only playable at this resolution without AA enabled (though, the ATI part comes closer to being playable). It should go without saying that the mid-range cards are unplayable here.
For high end cards paired with a monitor that can handle it, 1920x1440 offers good AA performance. If the investment in a 7800 GTX seems worth it, nothing looks better than 2048x1536 with 4xAA/AF. Oddly enough, we can still see the difference between aliased and antialiased game play at these huge resolutions. Of course, the problem is only obvious on near vertical or near horizontal lines and is much less of an issue at huge resolutions than at, say, 1024x768.
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jkostans - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
Yeah the 9800 pro runs fine at 1024x768 with graphics high on my barton 3000+ (2.2ghz). Oh yeah and a gig of pc2700 ram. I would compare the framerate to CS:S but a tad slower in some areas. Oh and for people wanting to find out how their computer performs, there is a demo available. Yeah it's 500mb but it's good.Xenoterranos - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
Where's the Voodo 3 2000/K62 test setup? Come on guys, cater to the poor b@stards out here... :pWileCoyote - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
For you 9800 Pro owners this game runs pretty well on a 3ghz p4 with 2gb of ram.I run BF2 at 1024x768, medium, 4xAA and it runs very smooth. I'm sure you could even bump up some of the medium settings to high.
Aikouka - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
#16:I mean bias as in a statistical bias, not a personal preference.
Jep4444 - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
how bout we seem some tests from either an X600Pro/XT or a 9600Pro/XT, these cards are extremely common and personally i'd like to know how my card fairs in BF2, i don't want to have to wait until the X550 comes out(basically a 9600Pro with 500mhz RAM instead of 600mhz) to find out how my card should performyacoub - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
Oh I see now. FX-55 system. Heh.yacoub - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
Sweet so if I get an X800XL card for around $300 (the most anyone should have to pay for a GPU to play the latest games smoothly), I can just about handle 1280x1024 with 4xAA/High quality at around 50fps. That's not toooooooo bad.Oh wait, I wonder what the rest of the test system's specs are (I didn't see them on any of the pages). If it's like an FX-57 or something then that's not exactly promising for the majority of us running 3000+-3700+ A64 systems who will clearly experience a bit lower performance. =/
Avalon - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
#18,An X700 does not have twice the pipes of a 9800 pro, it has the same exact ammount. It also is not clocked much higher. The x700pro is clocked at 425/860 compared to a 9800pro at 380/680. As you can see, core speeds are fairly close, and memory speeds...well, the 9800pro is 256bit while the x700pro is 128bit, so despite the clockspeed advantage, the x700 should actually have less memory bandwidth in the end. This puts the cards roughly equal.
OrSin - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
the x700pro is clocked a little higher but has the same number of pipes and only 128 bus where the 9800pro has 256 bus. In truth the 9800pro is faster then the x700 and might be about the same as the 700pro or just little faster.coldpower27 - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
Questar, X700 is the RV410 chip which is 8X1/6 vs the the 9800 Pro R350 chip with 8X1/4. Though the X700 Pro has the advanatge of being clcoked a little higher.The X700 Pro should be close to the 6600 GT. And certainly does not have twice the pixel pipes or vertex pipes of 9800 Pro.