MaximumPC 2006 01

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32 MA XIMUMPC JANUARY 2006

BEST MIDRANGE VIDEOCARD

Looking for the best bang for your buck? Find out which GPU hits the sweet

spot, delivering excellent frame rates and the same video-processing qual-

ity as the big boys

The Radeon X1800 XL is the less expensive

cousin of ATI’s top-of-the-line X1800 XT. As

such, it’s the natural competitor to nVidia’s

GeForce 7800 GT, the downscale relative of

the 7800 GTX.

Here again, ATI and nVidia chose

divergent design paths, with ATI focusing

on core and memory clock speeds at the

expense of pixel pipelines. In Sapphire’s

implementation, both the X

XL and its GDDR3 memory are

clocked at a stock 500MHz ($370,

http://www.sapphiretech.com). Leadtek

chose to nudge nVidia’s 7800

GT reference design to 450MHz

for the core, and the memory

to 525MHz ($395, http://www.leadtek.com). Both

cards feature 256MB frame buffers.

And again, the X1800 XL’s 16 pixel

pipelines proved to be no match for the

nVidia card’s extra four pipes, despite the

signifi cant advantage in

clock speeds. nVidia’s

margin of victory in game

performance was closer

in this price range, but

the difference was more

than enough to compensate for the slightly

higher price tag on Leadtek’s board. And

when you take video-processing perfor-

mance into account, Sapphire’s offering is

completely overwhelmed.

The benchmark results for 3DMark

were particularly close, with nVidia beating

ATI by just 172 points. The difference in

real-world gaming performance, however,

was much more signifi cant, especially with

Doom 3. Which would

you rather experience:

a respectable 51.7fps at

1600x1200 with the 7800

GT, or a paltry 36.2fps

with X1800 XL?

And as we saw at the high end, nVidia

clobbers ATI when it comes to video pro-

cessing. The X1800 XL had a very diffi cult

time with the HQV Benchmark DVD, scoring

zero points in several tests.

LEADTEK

WINFAST 7800

GT TDH EXTREME

Leadtek’s nVidia-powered 7inFast 78 GT

T$H EXtreme (left) out-muscled and out-hustled

Sapphire’s ATI-powered X8 XL in our midrange

videocard face-off, thanks to an abundance of

piXel pipelines.

BEST BUDGET VIDEOCARD

Can’t swing the bucks for a high-end or midrange videocard? We pit nVidia’s

6800 GT against ATI’s brand-new X1600 XT to see which GPU delivers the

goods without busting the budget

When we say “budget,” we’re talking about

the budgets that PC enthusiasts bring to the

market. You won’t fi nd any $99 cheapies in

this 3D-card cage-match, but you will fi nd

rivals ATI and nVidia duking it out once again.

We believe there are three essential

features to look for when shopping for

a budget videocard: Shader Model 3.

support, excellent 3D-graph-

ics acceleration, and solid

video-processing performance.

ATI needed a new generation

of GPU in order to deliver SM

3.0 support, so it cooked up a

whole range of new 90nm parts,

including the 12-pipe X

GT reference design reviewed

here ($250, http://www.ati.com). nVidia’s older

6-series GPUs already supported Shader

Model 3.0, so the company has concen-

trated on releasing new iterations of those

parts to compete with

ATI’s—like the AOpen

Aeolus 6800 GT we

tested here ($275, http://www.

aopen.com). We chose to

stick with the GeForce

6800 GT because it delivers 16 pixel pipe-

lines at a reasonable price.

Sure, you can buy ATI’s X1600 XT

and have enough money left over for a

large pizza, but consider the performance

you’d be sacrifi cing in exchange for a bit

of undercooked dough and pepperoni:

nVidia’s budget GPU outperformed ATI’s

in all of our benchmarks

save one. The delta in

Doom 3 performance

was slightly smaller this

time, 38.9 vs. 20.3fps,

but 3DMark05 was the

only category in which ATI could claim

superiority. The X1600 XT’s video-pro-

cessing performance was dismal: it deliv-

ered a paltry HQV score of just 28.

AOPEN AEOLUS 6800 GT

If your budget absolutely won’t stretch beyond 5,

ATI’s Radeon X6 XT (left) will deliver Shader

Model 3. compatibility. But AOpen’s GeForce 68

GT card will deliver much better performance.

BENCHMARKS

SAPPHIRE X1800 XL LEADTEK WINFAST

Best scores in each category are bolded. Halo tested at 1600x1200 with sound disabled. Doom 3 tested at High Quality, 1600x1200, 4x AA. Far Cry

and 3DMark03 Game 2 and Game 4 tested at 1600x1200, 4x AA, 8x aniso. 3DMark03 and 3DMark05 run using default settings. HQV score is derived from

the HQV Benchmark DVD.

DOOM 3 (FPS) 36.2 51.

FAR CRY (FPS) 80.7 85.

HALO (FPS) 77.6 98.

3DMARK05 7,300 7,

3DMARK03 13,692 15,

HQV SCORE 38 56

BENCHMARKS

Best scores in each category are bolded. Halo tested at 1600x1200 with sound disabled. Doom 3 tested at Ultra Quality, 1600x1200, 4x

AA. Far Cry and 3DMark03 Game 2 and Game 4 tested at 1600x1200, 4x AA, 8x aniso. 3DMark03 and 3DMark05 run using default settings.

HQV score is derived from the HQV Benchmark DVD.

DOOM 3 (FPS) 20.3 38.

FAR CRY (FPS) 36.6 70.

HALO (FPS) 44.1 62.

3DMARK05 5,306 5,

3DMARK03 9,693 11,

HQV SCORE 28 56

ATI X1600 XT AOPEN AEOLUS 6800 GT