Driverheaven.net: PNY 5900 v Hercules 9800

PNY 5900 v Hercules 9800

Hardware:
Hercules 3D Prophet 9800 128Mb
PNY Geforce FX 5900 128Mb
AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (333fsb) at 2088mhz
Abit NF7-S rev 2.0
2x256mb DDR 333 (Twinmos)
IBM Deskstar 120gxp 40GB 7200rpm Hard Drive.
Sony CRX300E DVD/CDRW
Sony Floppy Drive
Mercury 400W PSU
AOC 19” 9GLR CRT

Software:
Windows XP, SP1a
Direct X 9.0b
Catalyst 3.7 WHQL
Detonator 45.23 WHQL
Nforce driver v2.45
3d Mark 2001SE
3d Mark 2003 build 330
Splinter Cell V1.2
Unreal Tournament 2003 build 2225
Elite Force 2
Tomb Raider : Angel Of Darkness v49
Aquamark3
Shadermark 2.0

The test system was built from scratch, a format of the hard drive was performed (NTFS) and then Windows XP was installed. Following the completion of the install the N-force drivers were installed. The only updates applied were SP1a and Direct X 9.0b. Following a reboot the Catalyst 3.7 or Detonator 45.23 drivers were installed. Next the benchmarking tools were installed and finally the hard drive was de-fragmented.

For all tests the ATI and Nvidia drivers were set to best image quality.

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.

BENCHMARKING:
3dmark2001 SE is a very popular benchmark that has been broadly used to evaluate Microsoft's Direct X 8.0 and 8.1 graphics hardware. This test is primarily composed of fixed-function DX7-style rendering, with a selection of DX8-style pixel shaders included on a few specific tests.

	Settings	1024x768 0aa 0af	1024x768 2aa 8af	1280x960 0aa 0af	1280x960 2aa 8af	1600x1200 0aa 0af	1600x1200 2aa 8af
*Card*
5900		13524 Marks	10804 Marks	11904 Marks	9181 Marks	10284 Marks	7407 Marks
9800		14519 Marks	11307 Marks	12820 Marks	9316 Marks	10535 Marks	7224 Marks

In 5 out of the six tests the 9800 is reasonably far ahead of the 5900, with the largest gap being 995marks at 1024x768 0xAA 0xAF. However at our maximum settings used for this review the 5900 pulls slightly ahead, the difference was 183 points.

click image to visit Futuremark

3dmark03 is the newest benchmark from Futuremark, and the only benchmark in common use that is designed specifically for Direct X 9.0 graphics hardware.

This test is especially challenging in that it exerts a heavy pixel shader and vertex shader load on the graphics adapter. Today's popular game titles still tend to use a fixed-function DX7 style of rendering, with a few optional shaders thrown in for special effects. While the current crop of game-based benchmarks can be made to create a heavy fillrate load (by increasing resolution and adding AA and/or AF), they do not stress the portions of the graphics processor that will become critical in next-generation titles - the shader engines.

3dmark03 contains multiple scenes that are completely shader-driven and as such is highly valuable as a forward-looking benchmark test.

	Settings	1024x768 0aa 0af	1024x768 2aa 8af	1280x960 0aa 0af	1280x960 2aa 8af	1600x1200 0aa 0af	1600x1200 2aa 8af
*Card*
5900		5150 Marks	3331 Marks	4130 Marks	2493 Marks	3149 marks	1754 Marks
9800		4850 Marks	3224 Marks	3765 Marks	2432 Marks	2805 Marks	1790 Marks

In a complete reversal of the results in 3D Mark 01 the 03 results show the 5900 ahead of the 9800 (the biggest difference is 365 points at 1280x960 0xAA 0xAF) in all but the highest resolution. At 1600x1200 2xAA 8xAF the 9800 is 36points ahead.

Next: Unreal Tournament 2003