![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Thursday , March 06, 2003
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Radeon 9800 Pro Review
We investigate what improvements ATi has made over the Radeon 9700 Pro and make a very detailed analysis of performance using both gaming and synthetic tests. If you are pondering the purchase of a graphics accelerator soon, we suggest you to read this review first before making your next buying decision.
Test Setup
Asus A7N8X Deluxe, Athlon XP 2800+ (166Mhz FSB), 2 X 256MB Corsair XMS3500 C2 (Dual Channel DDR333), Maxtor 40GB ATA/133. Windows XP Professional SP1 with DirectX 9.
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro – Operating at default clock speeds (380/340) using driver version Catalyst 3.1 Packaging Version 7.84.
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro - Operating at default clock speeds (325/310) using driver version Catalyst 3.1 Packaging Version 7.83.
NVIDIA GeForceFX 5800 – An Ultra Downclocked to 400/400 to represent retail level 5800 performance, using driver version 42.69.
Gaming Benchmarks
Unreal Tournament 2003:
A full installation of Unreal Tournament 2003 with patch 2199 was used. For our tests, we're using our own UT2003 Benchmarking utility version 2.1. Resolutions of 1024x768, 1280x1024, and 1600x1200 were tested in Direct3D High Quality mode in Antalus, Suntemple and Inferno maps. AntiAliasing and Anisotropic levels are noted where necessary.
NoAA/NoAF Comparison
Our first set of results compares performance without any Anti-Aliasing or Anisotropic Filtering enabled.
In Antalus the 9800 Pro is around 7% faster then the 9700 Pro overall and around 10% faster then the GeForceFX. The 9700 Pro is around 5% overall compared to the GFFX. The numbers are so close though that really any one can play Antalus with NoAA/NoAF very fast for game play in all resolutions. Suntemple shows a greater increase for the 9800 Pro over the 9700 Pro. Up to 16% faster at 1600x1200. The 9800 Pro in Inferno is overall 16% faster compared to the 9700 Pro.
Anti-Aliasing Comparison
Our next set of results compares performance with only Anti-Aliasing enabled.
At 2XAA in Antalus at 1024x768 the 9800 Pro is 15% faster then the 9700 Pro and up to 19% faster at 1280x1024. In Suntemple the 9800 Pro is up to 24% faster at 1280x1024. Inferno shows up to a 20% increase in performance at 1024x768. Both the 9800 Pro and 9700 Pro outperform the GeForceFX 5800.
At 4XAA in Antalus we see up to a 23% improvement in performance at 1600x1200 and 1280x1024 compared to the 9700 Pro. In Suntemple we are seeing around a 25% increase in performance in 4X AA compared to the 9700 Pro. We see around a 20% improvement in Inferno.
At 6XAA in Antalus we see about a 10% improvement overall. In Suntemple there is close to a 20% increase in performance at 1280x1024. There is a 15% improvement in Inferno, except for 1600x1200 which actually came in .6 FPS slower. I re-ran the test three times and each time got the same score for that resolution in Inferno.
So far this card is killer in improving Anti-Aliasing performance over the 9700 Pro. Obviously there are advancements in the 9800 Pro that are not simply tied to the 17% core speed jump.
The 9800 Pro simply wins the Anti-Aliasing performance crown in all these tests compared to GFFX and 9700 Pro. If you are unsure about that, we can throw a few more graphs at you.