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Performance

The benchmark results in this article are taken from our Radeon X1900XTX and GeForce 7900GTX reviews. Naturally, the test setup is the same on both articles, the only difference being the drivers used. An important note: we're using Catalyst 6.2 drivers with the Radeon X1900XTX since those were the drivers that were used in that review. FYI, the latest drivers are 6.4 and performance with these drivers are slightly higher. So keep that in mind when you're looking at the numbers. NVIDIA's Forceware 84.21 was used with the GeForce 7900GTX (and 7800GTX).

We'd like to thank both Tagan and Kingston for supplying with the additional power supply and 1 GB memory modules for this article.

Our test setup
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ socket 939
2 x 1024 MB Kingston KVR 3-3-3 PC3200 DDR-SDRAM
MSI K8N NForce 4 SLI motherboard
ASUS EN7800GTX TOP GeForce 7800GTX DDR3 256 MB graphics card
(running at standard and reference clocks - core 486 MHz / memory 675 MHz (1350 MHz effective) and core 430 MHz / memory 600 MHz (1200 MHz effective))
Gigabyte Radeon X1900XTX DDR3 512 MB graphics card
Leadtek WinFast PX7900GTX TDH 512 MB graphics card
Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus9 80 GB Serial ATA 8 MB buffer
ASUS E-616 DVD-ROM
Tagan TG530-U15 530 watts ATX/BTX power supply

Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 installed
ATI Catalyst 6.2 reference driver
NVIDIA Forceware 84.21 reference driver
NVIDIA NForce 4 6.70 reference driver
Creative SoundBlaster Live! 24 bit 5.12.1.512 driver.
DirectX 9.0c

Performance

Compared to the GeForce 7800GTX

Our first three benchmarks are quite old, but they serve their purpose well. Devoid of SM 2.0 and 3.0 shaders, these games still rely mostly on textures, so they're perfect for testing anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering performance. The table below is pretty self explanatory, but in case you're wondering, "Performance Lost" (in percent) here means the degree of performance lost (compared to default settings) when we enable both AA and AF. Keep in mind that there are fluctuations in the results, although it's very small (typically around 1-2 percent). For each resolution, we calculate an average performance lost for the minimum, average and maximum fps. If you just want a summary of these numbers, just look at the bottom of the table - you can see the weighted average performance lost from 1024 x 768 to 1600 x 1200.

Call of Duty

	7800GTX			7800GTX TOP			7900GTX
	Default	AA AF	Performance Lost	Default	AA AF	Performance Lost	Default	AA AF	Performance Lost
1024
Min	82	81	1.22%	81	79	2.47%	79	78	1.27%
Avg	224.65	178.91	20.36%	225.92	189.56	16.09%	201.11	190.75	5.15%
Max	503	312	37.97%	538	337	37.36%	404	339	16.09%
Average			19.85%			18.64%			7.50%
1280
Min	83	84	-1.20%	83	83	0.00%	80	79	1.25%
Avg	213.85	132.92	37.85%	217.51	146.22	32.77%	197.42	158.77	19.58%
Max	427	206	51.76%	459	231	49.67%	413	271	34.38%
Average			29.47%			27.48%			18.40%
1600
Min	82	68	17.07%	81	77	4.94%	80	79	1.25%
Avg	193.49	96.27	50.25%	201.95	107.77	46.64%	192.84	123.74	35.83%
Max	342	138	59.65%	358	156	56.42%	383	182	52.48%
Average			42.32%			36.00%			29.85%
Weighted Average			30.55%			27.37%			18.59%

That's just incredible - look at how much frame rates we're losing with the GeForce 7800GTX - 20 to 40 percent from 1024 x 768 to 1600 x 1200. The GeForce 7900GTX with its higher clocked core allowed us to reach frame rates much higher at higher resolutions. No doubt, you'll notice that the penalty is similar between the GeForce 7800GTX at 1024 x 768 and GeForce 7900GTX at 1280 x1024. So, we'll likely to see the same trend, it's on different resolutions. (1280 x 1024 as opposed to 1024 x 768). Overall, we can see the GeForce 7900GTX has pretty much half the penalty of the GeForce 7800GTX with AA and AF.

Homeworld 2

	7800GTX			7800GTX TOP			7900GTX
	Default	AA AF	Performance Lost	Default	AA AF	Performance Lost	Default	AA AF	Performance Lost
1024
Min	59	62	-5.08%	60	65	-8.33%	60	63	-5.00%
Avg	205.75	199.67	2.96%	206.41	205.47	0.45%	200.5	201.32	-0.41%
Max	407	412	-1.23%	409	414	-1.22%	389	394	-1.29%
Average			-1.12%			-3.03%			-2.23%
1280
Min	64	51	20.31%	64	58	9.38%	58	61	-5.17%
Avg	203.89	153.26	24.83%	204.84	171.07	16.48%	198.81	189.87	4.50%
Max	406	268	33.9%	409	302	26.16%	389	359	7.71%
Average			26.38%			17.34%			2.35%
1600
Min	63	35	44.44%	62	40	35.48%	61	47	22.95%
Avg	197.63	106.63	46.05%	200.29	121.35	39.41%	194.58	142.37	26.83%
Max	404	174	56.93%	404	199	50.74%	384	230	40.10%
Average			49.14%			41.88%			29.96%
Weighted Average			23.09%			18.73%			10.03%

Here we can see pretty much the same thing, only this time the GeForce 7900GTX has less than half the penalty of a GeForce 7800GTX. If you look at the details, you can see that there's virtually no penalty whatsoever on the GeForce 7900GTX except at 1600 x 1200. That's actually not surprising since this is an RTS game. Compared to the GeForce 7800GTX, the GeForce 7900GTX retain 20 percent more of its frame rate under default settings. We wonder though, if we were able to reach even higher resolutions such as 2048 x 1536, will we see the same trend as Call of Duty.

Richard Burns Rally

	7800GTX			7800GTX TOP			7900GTX
	Default	AA AF	Performance Lost	Default	AA AF	Performance Lost	Default	AA AF	Performance Lost
1024
Min	108	105	2.78%	107	102	4.67%	106	103	2.83%
Avg	153.5	149.69	2.48%	157.33	154.69	1.68%	152.13	150.9	0.81%
Max	229	221	3.49%	229	226	1.31%	228	219	3.95%
Average			2.92%			2.55%			2.53%
1280
Min	106	84	20.75%	108	95	12.04%	105	102	2.86%
Avg	153.81	124.29	19.19%	156.64	137.18	12.42%	152.44	148.41	2.65%
Max	223	218	2.24%	234	212	9.40%	223	216	3.14%
Average			14.06%			11.29%			2.88%
1600
Min	101	63	37.62%	108	71	34.26%	105	90	14.29%
Avg	153.43	92.77	39.54%	156.38	104.77	33.00%	151.47	129.68	14.38%
Max	219	155	29.22%	233	178	23.61%	219	207	5.48%
Average			35.46%			30.29%			11.38%
Weighted Average			17.48%			14.71%			5.60%

The results we're seeing in this game is just way out there - the GeForce 7900GTX is more than three times more efficient than the GeForce 7800GTX. Most of the difference can only be seen at 1600 x 1200, where the GeForce 7900GTX can make optimal use of its higher clocked core and memory. If we were to 'superimpose' the trend we're seeing with Call of Duty (and Homeworld 2), the penalty is similar between a GeForce 7800GTX running at 1280 x 960 and a GeForce 7900GTX running at 1600 x 1200. The relatively small difference (around 3-5 percent) is likely normal variations between runs.

All right, we've seen that the GeForce 7900GTX is more efficient than the GeForce 7800GTX, at their own clocks. It's most likely that the higher clocked core and memory that's making the difference here. After all, a 220 / 200 MHz difference is nothing to scoffed about - that's actually close to half the core clock of the GeForce 7800GTX. You might be wondering why we're not seeing even lower penalty on the GeForce 7900GTX. The answer is in the memory clock - it's only about 1/3 faster (1200 : 1600 MHz). That's about 30 - 35 percent, which corresponds to the difference we're seeing. So, even though theoretically we should be able to get higher frame rates, there's not enough memory bandwidth to keep the core fed. This would explain the drastic change of penalty at certain resolutions.

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