Fall 2003 Video Card Roundup - Part 2: High End Shootout
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on October 7, 2003 5:30 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
If anyone actually made it this far without skipping around, please let me express my sincere appreciation to your dedication. This article has definitely been an entity with a mind of its own, and it continued to grow regardless how much we hacked at it. There are benchmarks we had to leave out, and there is still so much more I want to do with these cards and games.
The 5950 hasn't been shown to perform much better than the 5900, but it definitely has an acceptable performance increase for a Fall refresh product. So far, we like what we have seen from the 9800XT, and we are anxious to test out ATIs OverDriver feature.
The new 52.14 drivers are much better than either the 51.xx or the 45.xx series. The image quality issues are corrected from 51.xx, and a lot of speed has been inked out over the 45.xx drivers. We have actually been very impressed with the speed, image quality, and playability enhancements we have seen. As long as NVIDIA doesn't take a step backwards before the official 50 series drivers are released, we think everyone who owns a GeForce FX card will be very pleased with what they get. NVIDIA should have never pushed the press to benchmark with the 51 series as no one used it for Half Life 2 and in the end the bugs in the drivers did nothing more than tarnish NVIDIA's name. Regaining the credibility they have lost will definitely take NVIDIA some time.
If you made it all the way through the section on TRAOD, you'll remember the miniboss named compilers. The very large performance gains we saw in Halo, Aquamark3, X2 and Tomb Raider can be attributed to the enhancements of NVIDIAs compiler technology in the 52.xx series of drivers. Whether a developer writes code in HLSL or Cg, NVIDIAs goal is to be able to take that code and find the optimum way to achieve the desired result on their hardware. Eliminating the need for developers to spend extra time hand optimizing code specifically for NVIDIA hardware is in everyone's best interest. If NVIDIA can continue to extract the kinds of performance gains from unoptimized DX9 code as they have done with the 52.14 drivers (without sacrificing image quality), they will be well on their way to taking the performance crown back from ATI by the time NV40 and R400 drop. NVIDIAs GPU architecture is a solid one, but it just needs to be treated the right way. From our angle, at this point, compiler technology is NVIDIAs wildcard. Depending on what they are able to do with it, things could go either way.
Right now NVIDIA is at a disadvantage; ATI's hardware is much easier to code for and the performance on Microsoft's HLSL compiler clearly favors the R3x0 over the NV3x. NVIDIA has a long road ahead of them in order to improve their compilers to the point where game developers won't have to hand-code special NV3x codepaths, but for now ATI seems to have won the battle. Next year will be the year of DX9 titles, and it will be under the next generation of games that we will finally be able to crown a true DX9 winner. Until then, anyone's guess is fair game.
ATI is still the recommendation, but NVIDIA is not a bad card to have by any stretch of the imagination. We still urge our readers not to buy a card until the game they want to play shows up on the street. For those of you who need a card now, we'll be doing a value card round up as part of this series as well.
Keep in mind that ATI's Catalyst 3.8 drivers are coming out this week, and rest assured that we will be doing a follow up as quickly as possible to fill in the gaps. To say this has been a very interesting month in the graphics world would be a definite understatement. If this hasn't been an overload of information, stay tuned, because there is so much more to come.
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Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 8, 2003 - link
#67 I think the lightsaber glow is horrible on the Nvidia cards. They glow shines THROUGH the players head. Looks to me like a bug. I like the ATI saber much better.(Most peoples heads aren't empty, so light does not shine trough. Maybe your experience is different? ;-)))
#76 Couldn't agree more. The blurry AA in aquamark is crystal clear even in those tiny images. So how could the authors possible miss that and proclaim that there is no IQ issues? Especially since they have looked at the fullscreen images and spend days on the article?
Also you can immediately see in all the small images that in general AA is better on the ATI card. This is nothing new, and not considered cheating by Nvidia. It's just that most know that there is a quality difference.
But shouldn't that at least be mentioned in an article that is focused on image quality?
Why no screenshots on splinter cell? We should just believe the authors on that? With the aquamark pictures they have shown that we can't take their word for it. So I'd really like to see those screenshots too. Same for EVE.
And I was really suprised that they didn't know that the water issue in NWN was NOT Ati's fault. They claim that they have surfed forums on NWN issues. In that case they should have known that. (one look at rage3d would have been enough)
And on top of this the TRAOD part. It seems they typed more text on TROAD then they did in the entire rest of the article. No wonder that people frown at the TROAD part.
All in all, I can see that much work went into the article, but I feel that it could have been much better.
As it is now it is left to the reader to find the image issues in the small pictures. But I would expect the author to point me to the image issues.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 8, 2003 - link
#74, conclusions are one thing, objective journalism is another.There are clear differences in even the small and relatively badly chosen images posted with the article, yet all we get to read is "there are no IQ issues".
Thus, either the authors of the article are not competent enough (maybe they were simply too tired after the testing...) , or they are intentionally ignoring the differences.
Iger - Wednesday, October 8, 2003 - link
I just can't stay aside and not to thank the authors. The job they've done in this article is amazing, and the site was and will be my all-time favourite! Thank you! :)Malichite - Wednesday, October 8, 2003 - link
I am extremely confused with the posts here. Many ATI guys seem to think AT unfairly favored the nVidia cards. Did we read the same article? In the end I came away with the opinion that while the new Det 52.xx help, things may get better for nVidia, the ATI is still a better choice today. Did I miss something?Additionally for all the guys claiming TR:AOD is a great game. Yeah, we all know only the truely *great* games pull a %51 rating over on www.gamerankings.com (based on 21 media reviews).
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 8, 2003 - link
Just what kind of world do we live in before a guy has to say why he's not a fanboy before they express their opinion, anyway? The worst part is, you people who do this, you're completely justified in your actions, because if you don't explain why you're not an ATi/nVidia fanboy then people call you one.God.. can't we argue without calling others fanboys for once?
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 8, 2003 - link
i forgot to add the j/k part... i dont want you taking my poor attempt at humor the wrong way... ;)anyways, i dont know what all the commotion is about.. shouldnt u (ATI-folk) be happy that nvidia is making vast improvements?
i would feel sympathetic for people who THOUGHT they wasted $400+ dollars on a card that didn't seem to deliver the performance it promised...
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 8, 2003 - link
What kind of biased crappy unproffesional review shows percentage drops for enabeling ps 2.0 without showing framerates? if fps are around 30 to begin with the % of fps drop makes no difference cause the game is rendered unplayable! and who benchmarks beta drivers not available to the public on hardware not yet anounced?this reeks with $ payoff and seems like anadtech have thrown thier integrity to waste.I wish that on the 10th when nvidia anounces the nv38 they also release these drivers to the public than some seious review site can actually test the hardware(and software, forgive my skeptisicm but nVidia sure earned it this past year) and show us what nVidia is bringing to the graphic's field.
Disapointed by nVidia and now by Anandtech
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 8, 2003 - link
sure u do... ;)Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 8, 2003 - link
Not everyone talking about IQ differences here is a fanboy.Look at the images at the bottom of the Aquamark 3 IQ page (highest quality AA, 8xAF). The nVidia 52.14 image is blurred, much detail is lost especially around the explosion. The Catalyst 3.7 image is way sharper, yet its AA is smoother (look at the car body above the wheels), and it loses much less detail around the explosion. The differences are much more than "barely noticeable".
The tiny images don't give much credit to the article, though.
(Before anyone calls me az ATI fanboy: I have a GeForce FX 5600 dual DVI.)
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 8, 2003 - link
TR: AOD is a terrible game, most people just like it because it's such a hot spot for all this benchmarking shite.At times like this, I'm glad I use a Matrox Millenium II! .. okay, kidding, but still.