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Performance

Now for the performance evaluation. Since all these cards use the same reference design, they offer roughly the same level of performance. The Gigabyte X700 Pro 256 MB running at 427 MHz for the core and 433 MHz DDR for the memory is a hair faster than the ASUS EAX700Pro TVD 256 MB running at 425 MHz and 433 MHz DDR. The MSI RX700 Pro TD128E is the slower card, running at 420 MHz and 433 MHz DDR. So, you see, memory capacity is not the most important issue here.

We didn't experience any problems with any of the cards. Installation was smooth as you can get. Before looking at the test results, we encourage you to read our 'How We Evaluate' article so you understand how we conduct our test and benchmarks. More importantly, you will also see how each benchmarks react with our test setup. We only put the average, minimum and maximum fps in this evaluation to keep it brief, excluding the per second fps progress graph.

Our test setup
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ socket 939
2 x 256 MB Kingston KVR 3-3-3 PC3200 DDR-SDRAM
MSI K8N NForce 4 SLI motherboard
Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus9 80 GBs Serial ATA 8 MB buffer
ASUS E-616 DVD-ROM
450 watts ATX power supply

Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 installed
ATI Catalyst 5.9 reference driver
NVIDIA NForce 4 6.66 reference driver
Creative SoundBlaster Live! 24 bit 5.12.1.512 driver.
DirectX 9.0c
all respected games used for benchmarks have been updated to their latest, final builds.

The results:

We've nearly reached the fps ceiling with our Athlon 64 3000+. Since the cards run at the same clock for both core and memory, we see very little difference. The ABIT RX800XL EDVIO256 and GeCube is a hair faster, but you certainly won't notice it in gameplay. Even on 1600 x 1200 with 4x AA and 16x AF, Call of Duty is fluid with these cards.


Even old games can still scale well - the GeCube X800XL Uniwise is the faster card here - again by a hair. Since this game is shader intensive, the card with a higher clock is naturally faster. But since the differences are small, you won't notice it. Interestingly enough, GeCube also has a lower minimum fps at one point, but the overall average fps is higher on all resolutions and with AF.

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