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We've included HDR test results (without AF) to give you some idea of what kind of performance you can expect with HDR enabled. Interestingly enough, HDR's performance penalty is smaller than AA and AF on the GeForce 6800GT. Even on default settings, the Radeon X800XL offers performance very close to the GeForce 6800GT. With AA and AF enabled, the X800XL leaves it's rival behind. But it's not a clean getaway - minimum fps are lower than the GeForce 6800GT. With higher resolutions, the GeForce 6800GT drops more performance, even in default settings, but its still maintain a higher minimum fps.

	GeForce 6800GT		Radeon X800XL
	Default	4x AA 16x AF	Default	4x AA 16x AF
<30 fps	1	2	1	1
30-45 fps	1	62	0	3
45-60 fps	14	0	42	59
60-90 fps	48	0	20	1
90-120 fps	0	0	0	0

Wow - what happened here? The GeForce 6800GT is now trailing behind - it can push more than 45 fps with AA and AF enabled. Without AA and AF, it's certainly the faster card before. So, it looks like the X800XL is a better match for this game - look at the minimum frame rates. Our concern over minimum frame rates was unfounded since it's just 1 second. It's more likely caused by disk access when first time loading the demo.

Out of these three titles, only F.E.A.R behaves in similar manner to Brothers in Arms, but F.E.A.R is actually a very different beast of a game. Quake 4 and Serious Sam II is more in line with our previous test results - the GeForce 6800GT is significantly faster without AA and AF, but the significant performance hit it has makes it slower (or about the same) than the Radeon X800XL when AA and AF is enabled. On both cards, you're likely only use 1024 x 768 with AA and AF or 1280 x 960 / 1024 without AA and AF.

There will be games that's just too heavy with AA and AF (on both cards). F.E.A.R is one such game. If you play games like F.E.A.R, you're better off with the GeForce 6800GT. However, we don't feel most games will behave much like F.E.A.R or Brothers in Arms for that matter. Although it's tempting to speculate that the reason for the GeForce 6800GT higher frame rates in F.E.A.R is shader related, we do not think so. The performance difference in F.E.A.R between the two cards are in line to differences in other games. And in all honesty, don't buy both cards to play F.E.A.R - you're better off with an even faster card such as the GeForce 7800GTX/GT or the Radeon X1800XT/XL if you want to max out all settings in that game.

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