I had the chance over the weekend to play with a brand new gaming rig, even got to swap out graphics cards to do some testing for myself. Some interesting results
Specs on that rig:
Athlon XP 3200+
2GB PC3200 Kingston RAM (2x1024)
MSI Mainboard (forgot model )
Sapphire Radeon 9800 PRO
PNY GeForceFX 5900 Ultra
Audigy II soundcard.
Alright I'll summarize the results right off for you lazy non-readers. The Radeon was faster than the GeForce. Period. Now you can be content with that or read on.
We tested many different games, but I've only decided to mention the newer ones that I felt were a good test for the system.
Starwars Galaxies: Game is capped at 30fps no matter what. Radeon couldn't draw shadows correctly and had glitches when radial flora was enabled (trasparent masks allowed view through other objects, etc). GeForce had one problem with Antialiasing until we turned off forced AA and let the game et it accordingly.
Savage Demo: Radeon ran about 15 fps faster on average, but spell effects sometimes did not render at distance. Corrupted player model texture for one unit happened on a few occasions during play. Possibly a bug with LOD features?
Yaeger Demo 5.2.0: Radeon again runs faster than the GeForce. Volumetric effects sometimes flickered however. Other than that, pretty good. This is a beautiful game by the way.
America's Army: Radeon ran nearly 25 fps faster on average. Experienced swimming detail textures on weapons and player models as viewpoint changed. It was able to handle volumetrics easily in this game, so the problems mentioned with Yaeger were due to engine issues most likely.
Morrowind: Both cards performed almost exactly the same, with only about 5fps lead by the Radeon. Again, problems with dynamic shadows when set to full. Water effect seemed slightly less detailed on the Radeon (not sure why, looked blurred). At 1600x1200 this game was ****ing JAW DROPPING with this system. We used the Morrowind tweaker to push the engine as far as we could, and really saw no slowdown on either card. I practically had to change my pants, and wish I had a screenshot to show you guys.
Freedom Fighters: This game is a lot of fun. Ran great on both cards. No problems on either. Radeon beat the GeForce by around 15fps.
Halo: Both cards ran this as well as could be expected, considering my hatred for Gearbox... anyway... Weapons effects and dynamic lighting looked different on the Radeon. Not in bad way, but they just looked... different. Radeon pulled ahead by 10fps or so I think.
Wolfenstein 3d: Had nothing to do with the test whatsoever. Just good old fashioned Nazi-killing fun
Overall if you want speed, get the Radeon, hands down. If you want speed and quality, Nvidia. We used the latest and most stable drivers for both as well as community-tweaked drivers for the hell of it
My personal recommendation for you buyers is to go with Nvidia's offering, because at the current level of competition the performance is so high even with maximized settings that the extra speed really doesn't make up for the graphical glitches in my opinion. The Radeon was about 100 bucks cheaper than the GeForce though, so that is something to consider. With the NV38 and the 9800XT on the horizon, prices should begin to drop on both cards
Of course then I had to go back to my 1.4Ghz GF4-equipped machine on Monday *sigh*
Specs on that rig:
Athlon XP 3200+
2GB PC3200 Kingston RAM (2x1024)
MSI Mainboard (forgot model )
Sapphire Radeon 9800 PRO
PNY GeForceFX 5900 Ultra
Audigy II soundcard.
Alright I'll summarize the results right off for you lazy non-readers. The Radeon was faster than the GeForce. Period. Now you can be content with that or read on.
We tested many different games, but I've only decided to mention the newer ones that I felt were a good test for the system.
Starwars Galaxies: Game is capped at 30fps no matter what. Radeon couldn't draw shadows correctly and had glitches when radial flora was enabled (trasparent masks allowed view through other objects, etc). GeForce had one problem with Antialiasing until we turned off forced AA and let the game et it accordingly.
Savage Demo: Radeon ran about 15 fps faster on average, but spell effects sometimes did not render at distance. Corrupted player model texture for one unit happened on a few occasions during play. Possibly a bug with LOD features?
Yaeger Demo 5.2.0: Radeon again runs faster than the GeForce. Volumetric effects sometimes flickered however. Other than that, pretty good. This is a beautiful game by the way.
America's Army: Radeon ran nearly 25 fps faster on average. Experienced swimming detail textures on weapons and player models as viewpoint changed. It was able to handle volumetrics easily in this game, so the problems mentioned with Yaeger were due to engine issues most likely.
Morrowind: Both cards performed almost exactly the same, with only about 5fps lead by the Radeon. Again, problems with dynamic shadows when set to full. Water effect seemed slightly less detailed on the Radeon (not sure why, looked blurred). At 1600x1200 this game was ****ing JAW DROPPING with this system. We used the Morrowind tweaker to push the engine as far as we could, and really saw no slowdown on either card. I practically had to change my pants, and wish I had a screenshot to show you guys.
Freedom Fighters: This game is a lot of fun. Ran great on both cards. No problems on either. Radeon beat the GeForce by around 15fps.
Halo: Both cards ran this as well as could be expected, considering my hatred for Gearbox... anyway... Weapons effects and dynamic lighting looked different on the Radeon. Not in bad way, but they just looked... different. Radeon pulled ahead by 10fps or so I think.
Wolfenstein 3d: Had nothing to do with the test whatsoever. Just good old fashioned Nazi-killing fun
Overall if you want speed, get the Radeon, hands down. If you want speed and quality, Nvidia. We used the latest and most stable drivers for both as well as community-tweaked drivers for the hell of it
My personal recommendation for you buyers is to go with Nvidia's offering, because at the current level of competition the performance is so high even with maximized settings that the extra speed really doesn't make up for the graphical glitches in my opinion. The Radeon was about 100 bucks cheaper than the GeForce though, so that is something to consider. With the NV38 and the 9800XT on the horizon, prices should begin to drop on both cards
Of course then I had to go back to my 1.4Ghz GF4-equipped machine on Monday *sigh*