Introduction | Benchmarking & Conclusion | Image Quality Reports |

Article: Stuart "Veridan3" Davidson
Design/IQ Section : Allan "Zardon" Campbell

Performance Comparison

The following test system was used:

Cards:
Sapphire Radeon Atlantis 9600 Non Pro 128mb
HIS Radeon 9700 Pro 128mb
Hercules Radeon 9800 Non Pro128mb
Sapphire Radeon Atlantis 9800 Pro 256mb
Gainward Geforce FX 5900 Ultra 256mb (Golden Sample)

Other Hardware:
Athlon XP 2600+
Abit NF7-S rev 2.0
2x256Mb ddr 333 in Dual Channel(twinmos cas 2.5)
IBM Deskstar 120GXP 40gb 7200rpm Hard Drive running through Serillel ATA
Sony CRX300E DVD/CDRW Drive
AOC 19” CRT Monitor
Q-TEC 550w PSU

Software:
Windows XP SP1a
DirectX 9.0b
N-Force 2.45 WHQL
Aquamark3
Detonator 44.03 WHQL, 45.23 WHQL and 51.75(beta)
Catalyst 3.4 (WHQL) and 3.7 (WHQL)

The test system was built from scratch for each card. A format of the hard drive was performed (NTFS) and then Windows XP pro was installed. Following the completion of the install the N-force drivers were installed. The only updates applied were SP1 and Direct X 9.0b. Following a reboot the graphics drivers were installed and all graphics options were set to best image quality. Next Aquamark3 was installed and finally the hard drive was de-fragmented.
Good Benchmarking Practice:
Each benchmark was performed 3 times and the middle result for each resolution/setting is shown in the tables which follow. After changing any Anti-Aliasing (AA) or Anisotropic Filtering (AF) setting and before a benchmark was run the system was rebooted.

Default Benchmark Results “TRISCORE”

All tests run using the default Aquamark 1024x768x32 with 4xAniostropic

Some interesting results in the above table. Most noticeably the difference in performance across the different Detonator drivers is huge. From 44.03 to 51.75 Nvidia have managed to find almost 20,000 marks and double their score. The Radeon 9700 Pro and 9800 Non Pro are almost tied in this test and the 9800 Pro is only slightly behind the 5900 Ultra.

1280x1024x32 2xAA and 8xAF
(Note: cat 3.4 and Det 44.03 were omitted as they offer the same IQ as the 3.7/45.23 versions)

At the Higher settings of 1280x1024x32 with 2xAA and 8xAF the Radeon 9800 Pro slightly outpaces the 5900 Ultra (51.75). When using the 45.23 drives the 9800 Non Pro and 9700 Pro are faster than the 5900 Ultra.

1600x1200x32 2xAA and 8xAF
(Note: cat 3.4 and Det 44.03 were omitted as they offer the same IQ as the 3.7/45.23 versions)

At these settings the 9700 Pro again edges out the 9800 Non Pro and the 9800Pro again edges out the 5900 Ultra (51.75). Again when the 45.23 drivers are used the 5900 Ultra lags behind the 9700 Pro and 9800 Non Pro

Veridian's Conclusion:

We have been very impressed with Aquamark3. There are some excellent features such as SVIST and the results over multiple runs of the benchmark are almost identical. This means the program is not prone to other processes affecting the scores and therefore provides reliable and comparable results. There are a few features we would like to see added in a future version such as the ability to pause the benchmark and move the camera or specify a particular frame to grab using the inbuilt ASGRA slider as these would make the benchmark less open to optimisations. However at this time we are happy to perform our own image quality tests to ensure the end user sees fair results in future drivers.

From now onwards Aquamark3 will feature in all of our graphics card reviews.

Introduction | Benchmarking & Conclusion | Image Quality Reports |