Half Life 2 GPU Roundup Part 1 - DirectX 9 Shootout
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 17, 2004 11:22 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Head to Head: ATI Radeon X800 Pro vs. NVIDIA GeForce 6800GT
Priced at $400 our next head to head comparison is between the 12-pip Radeon X800 Pro and the 16-pipe GeForce 6800GT.
In our first demo, the 6800GT pulls ahead in all of the resolutions:
| Half Life 2 AT_canals_08.dem | |||
ATI Radeon X800 Pro |
NVIDIA GeForce 6800GT |
Performance Advantage |
|
| 1024 x 768 | 125.6 |
133.3 |
6.1% |
| 1280 x 1024 | 101 |
110.8 |
9.7% |
| 1600 x 1200 | 82.3 |
88 |
6.9% |
| 1024 x 768 - 4X AA | 106.8 |
113.2 |
6.0% |
| 1280 x 1024 - 4X AA | 75.4 |
77.1 |
2.3% |
| Winner | - |
- |
6800GT |
Our second demo shows a much closer competition, with the X800 Pro pulling ahead in the highest resolution AA test:
| Half Life 2 AT_coast_05.dem | |||
ATI Radeon X800 Pro |
NVIDIA GeForce 6800GT |
Performance Advantage |
|
| 1024 x 768 | 133.1 |
131.3 |
1.4% |
| 1280 x 1024 | 124.8 |
123.8 |
0.8% |
| 1600 x 1200 | 110.7 |
109.1 |
1.5% |
| 1024 x 768 - 4X AA | 130.5 |
129.5 |
0.8% |
| 1280 x 1024 - 4X AA | 113.4 |
107.7 |
5.3% |
| Winner | - |
- |
X800 Pro |
The balance shifts over to NVIDIA once again, but the two perform very similarly here as well:
| Half Life 2 AT_coast_12.dem | |||
ATI Radeon X800 Pro |
NVIDIA GeForce 6800GT |
Performance Advantage |
|
| 1024 x 768 | 119 |
123.3 |
3.6% |
| 1280 x 1024 | 105.1 |
107.8 |
2.6% |
| 1600 x 1200 | 86.2 |
90.5 |
5.0% |
| 1024 x 768 - 4X AA | 111.4 |
112.2 |
0.7% |
| 1280 x 1024 - 4X AA | 84.5 |
86 |
1.8% |
| Winner | - |
- |
6800GT |
The 6800GT takes it once again in our fourth demo:
| Half Life 2 AT_prison_05.dem | |||
ATI Radeon X800 Pro |
NVIDIA GeForce 6800GT |
Performance Advantage |
|
| 1024 x 768 | 135.7 |
147.4 |
8.6% |
| 1280 x 1024 | 106 |
112 |
5.7% |
| 1600 x 1200 | 80.8 |
83.2 |
3.0% |
| 1024 x 768 - 4X AA | 111.3 |
118 |
6.0% |
| 1280 x 1024 - 4X AA | 82.5 |
79.8 |
3.4% |
| Winner | - |
- |
6800GT |
And in our final demo the X800 Pro comes away with the win.
| Half Life 2 AT_c17_12.dem | |||
ATI Radeon X800 Pro |
NVIDIA GeForce 6800GT |
Performance Advantage |
|
| 1024 x 768 | 88.1 |
84.6 |
4.1% |
| 1280 x 1024 | 84.6 |
84 |
0.7% |
| 1600 x 1200 | 79.2 |
77 |
2.9% |
| 1024 x 768 - 4X AA | 84.8 |
82.8 |
2.4% |
| 1280 x 1024 - 4X AA | 77.1 |
72.6 |
6.2% |
| Winner | - |
- |
X800 Pro |
Averaging all of the scores together tells us that the 6800GT and the X800 Pro basically perform identically to one another, regardless of resolution:
| Summary | |||
Average Performance Advantage (6800GT over X800 Pro) |
|||
| 1024 x 768 | 2.6% |
||
| 1280 x 1024 | 3.3% |
||
| 1600 x 1200 | 2.1% |
||
| 1024 x 768 - 4X AA | 1.9% |
||
| 1280 x 1024 - 4X AA | -0.8% |
||
Head to Head: ATI Radeon X800 XT vs. NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra
Head to Head: ATI Radeon X700 XT vs. NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT
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79 Comments
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araczynski - Thursday, November 18, 2004 - link
yawn, i'm too busy enjoy the game (6800gt) to read the article and/or care which card is better :) i'm playing at 1600x1200 0AA/4AF (2.4@3.3/1GB) and have absolutely no complaints, other then knowing that the game will eventually end :(Jeff7181 - Thursday, November 18, 2004 - link
#57... poorly :)blckgrffn - Thursday, November 18, 2004 - link
I would also like to to see how the 9200/9000 series Radeons perform too, and if you have extra time, the 8500/9100.Again, Thanks!
Jeff7181 - Thursday, November 18, 2004 - link
#16... that's correct, although the only REAL observation that needs to be made is that Half Life 2 makes heavy use of pixel shaders which is very GPU dependant, and GPU's are just now growing the required testicles to process those shaders :)blckgrffn - Thursday, November 18, 2004 - link
Anand -I would like to see how the 6600 performs. As an 8 pipe card, it should perform better than the 9600xt and a little under a 9700 Pro, but it would be interesting to see if that is true. It is a great budget PCIe card along with the x700.
Thanks!
Nat
eva2000 - Thursday, November 18, 2004 - link
nice review downloaded your demos to run on AMD64 3700+ @ 12x 222 = 2664mhz with 1GB BH-5 @ 222mhz 2-2-2-6 1T and Powercolor X800XT PE @ 520/560 and all demo results were within 3-4fps of the reviews :)Live - Thursday, November 18, 2004 - link
Good reading as always. Would like to see minimum FPS tough. I find it very important to see how low the cards drop when stressed. You can't see that with only average FPS.housecat - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
So... wheres the Nvidia SLI versus ATI results??Muwahahaha.
Avalon - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Hey Anand, I have an interesting request. Could you try Rivatuner on your 6800, unlock its pipes, and then bench it again? :PJust kidding. Actually, I'm glad you've confirmed what I've been thinking...that AF hasn't been doing much for me. Since I'm running on a lowly 9700, I think I'll just turn it off now, and enjoy a nice speed boost.
PrinceGaz - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
How about throwing a GF 5600 and maybe even a GF 5200 in as well for part 2, as an awful lot of people have them. Ultra versions of either if you prefer.I don't have one of them myself as I'm still using a Ti4200, but it would be interesting to see how they stacked up in the DX8 codepath against the Ti4600 you are planning to test. And it should be worth a giggle to see just how "fast" the 5600 or 5200 can manage the DX9 codepath :)
Thanks to the resolution scaling-graphs this review included and how the fastest cards were generally CPU limited with that A64 4000+ when the resolution was dropped to 1024x768, I'm not sure how much a CPU scaling article for part 3 will show that can't already be quite accurately guesstimated from how different CPUs generally tend to perform in games. But a comparison of the Athlon 64 4000+, against an Athlon XP, a Prescott, a Northwood, and if time permits a fast P3, Duron and Celeron also, would be great.