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- Date:
- Monday , January 27, 2003
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
GeForce FX 5800 Ultra Preview
They're back...finally. NVIDIA gave us the new GFFX and we run it through some benchmarks and IQ comparisons while going head to head with the ATi 9700 Pro.
Test Setup:
Asus A7N8X Deluxe, Athlon XP 2800+ (166Mhz FSB), 2 X 256MB Corsair XMS3500 C2 (Dual Channel DDR333), Maxtor 40GB ATA/133. Both cards were benchmarked on the exact same system with identical BIOS settings and identical install of Windows XP Professional with Direct X 9.
GeForceFX 5800 Ultra – Operating at default clock speeds, driver version 42.63.
ATi 9700 Pro - Operating at default clock speeds, driver version 6.14.01.6255
3DMark2001SE:
We're using the latest version of 3DMark2001SE (build 330) for our testing. We ran each test at default 3DMark2001SE settings in the benchmark. We also tested at 2XAA 8XAF and 4XAA 8XAF enabled via the drivers.
At 1024x768 the 9700 Pro pulls in with 15,483 3DMarks on our test system. The GeForceFX 5800 Ultra comes out on top scoring 15,678 3DMarks at 1024x768. The same pattern holds true for 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 with NoAA and NoAF.
When 2X AA and 8X AF are enabled the GeForceFX 5800 Ultra still maintains the lead. In fact it is 2,353 3DMarks faster at 1280x1024 at 2X AA and 8X AF.
When 4X AA and 8X AF are enabled the GFFX is still faster than the 9700 Pro in 3DMark2001SE. The biggest difference is at 1280x1024 with a 1,063 3DMark advantage.
If you would like to see all the 3DMark details compared, you may click the images below. The first one is with NoAA and NoAF, the second with 2X AA and 2X AF, and the third with 4X AA and 4X AF.
I think the most noteworthy results worth mentioning that we see above is the fact that the Vertex Shaders and Advanced Pixel Shader speed is faster on the 9700 Pro versus the GeForceFX 5800 Ultra. But the Pixel Shader Speed is faster on the GeForceFX with NoAA and NoAF.
When 2X AA and 2X AF are enabled, the Vertex Shader speed and Pixel Shader is now faster on the GeForceFX, but the Advanced Pixel Shader speed is still faster on the 9700 Pro.
When 4X AA and 8X AF are enabled, the GeForceFX 5800 Ultra is faster at Vertex Shader Speed and Pixel Shader speed, but the 9700 Pro is still slightly faster at the Advanced Pixel Shaders. Both cards support Pixel Shader 2.0, which should default down to Pixel Shader 1.4 for the Advanced Pixel Shader test. So it seems Pixel Shader 1.4 is faster on the 9700 Pro, unless the GeForceFX 5800 Ultra is defaulting to Pixel Shader 1.3 in this test, which I have no way to tell.
Unreal Tournament 2003:
A full installation of Unreal Tournament 2003 with patch 2166 was used. For our tests, we're using our own UT2003 Benchmarking utility that is free for you to download and will allow you to take "apples to apples" benchmarks with the ones you see here. Resolutions of 1024x768, 1280x1024, and 1600x1200 were tested in High Quality mode in the Antalus, Inferno, Suntemple, and Face3 maps.
In dm-antalus the GeForceFX 5800 Ultra is faster with NoAA and NoAF in every resolution. However, both cards are plenty fast to play with no AA and no AF, the real test comes when you enabled these features.
At 2X AA and 8X AF the GeForceFX 5800 Ultra is faster than the 9700 Pro at all resolutions. The biggest gain is at 1024x768, with 14.5 FPS greater on the GFFX.
At 4X AA and 8X AF the GFFX is still faster than the 9700 Pro, but at 1600x1200 the difference isn’t all that great. At 1024x768 the difference is most noticed with a difference of 10.7 FPS.
Dom-suntemple shows us a little something different. With NoAA and NoAF the GFFX is faster just as it was in Antalus. But when 2X AA and 8X AF as well as 4X AA and 8X AF are enabled the 9700 Pro is faster at 1600x1200. In fact there is a difference of 17 FPS at 1600x1200 2X AA and 8X AF.
The same lead at 1600x1200 holds true for dm-inferno as well, and it even picks up a little at 4X AA and 8X AF with the 9700 Pro edging out the leader in all resolutions compared to the GFFX. Though the differences are small, they are there.
We wanted to throw ctf-face3 in for some AGP 8X testing between the two cards. Face3 is an enormous map in the amount of texture space it eats up. When AA and AF are enabled it is in excess of 130MB+. This puts it well over the threshold of 128MB video cards, so it will need to texture out across the AGP bus.
We can see that here with NoAA and NoAF the GFFX is slightly faster, except at 1024x768. Once AA and AF are enabled you can see how both cards plummet at 1600x1200 and 1280x1024. What I think is most noteworthy here is that even though the scores are low, the 9700 Pro is pulling out ahead of the GeForceFX 5800 Ultra at 1280x1024 and 1600x1200. Notice the score at 1280x1024 2X AA and 8X AF of the 9700 Pro, it got 64.4 FPS while the GFFX gets 29.3 FPS in the same tests. I have re-checked these results to make sure it wasn’t an error and both times got the same numbers.
(Editor's note: Certainly there are some numbers here that stick out as to being "off". The GFFX score at 2XAA/8XAF on Face3 does not seem to be correct. Please keep in mind that we have only had possession of this card since Friday afternoon and have had to work feverishly to produce the data we have here. We will certainly be talking to NVIDIA about these scores this week and giving you guys more feedback.)