Tech-Hounds.com

A Direct Comparison of Radeon X700 Pro and GeForce 6600GT - Part 2

PCI Express x16 graphics cards
Chipset Radeon X700 Pro 256 MB, 128 bit, GeForce 6600 128 MB, 128 bit

We've concluded in the first part (which you can find here) that for now, as a whole, the Radeon X700 Pro delivers the better hardware and software package that gamers want – a good enough performance (ranging from nearly as fast or sometimes faster), better image quality and consistent, compatible drivers than the GeForce 6600GT. There were times when ATI and good drivers are two contradicting phrases, but with the Catalyst driver program, ATI seems to put most of their past issues to rest. As we've discovered, NVIDIA has some catching up to do. While they've more than succeeded in delivering good hardware in the form of GeForce 6600GT, their driver is not currently up to par with ATI's.

Overview

In the first part of this article, we recommend users to use Forceware 66.81 which is older instead of Forceware 77.72. It lacks the bugs affecting Splinter Cell and F1 Career Challenge plus it also offers overall faster performance than the 77.72. However, we did note that this may not always be an option for users. Newer PC games may have bugs or incompatibilities with Forceware 66.81 and the fixes are incorporated in Forceware 77.72. There might also be other bug fixes not related to graphics performance or new features. We don't think that this particular area was address properly in the first part. So, naturally we went back to testing, this time with three different games. Just like before, we perform this test both on the GeForce 6600GT with Forceware 66.81 and 77.72 and the Radeon X700 Pro with Catalyst 4.12 and 5.7.

Since we have more time to do these benchmarks, we were able to test various resolutions (1024 x 768, 1280 x 1024 or 960 and 1600 x 1200, 32 bit color), with and without AA / AF. We used three new, different games this time around: Brothers in Arms, Homeworld 2 and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Testing are done by selecting a cut scene that's very close to gameplay situations or repeatedly playing the actual game in a similar manner. Unfortunately, looks like we discover yet another bug with Forceware 66.81. It will crash our system each time we press the Windows key (or use Alt-Tab) to switch to the Windows desktop game while playing the game Brothers in Arms. This bug made taking screenshots with Forceware 66.81 impossible, so we've decided to forgo image quality comparisons for Brothers in Arms. Fortunately, we we're still able to get screenshots with Homeworld 2 and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Brothers in Arms is a new game (released in 2005) from Gearbox and Ubisoft. It uses Epic's Unreal Engine and uses largely DirectX 8 shaders. In Brothers in Arms, we picked the intro chapter for testing. This intro chapter can be thought of as an interactive cinematic, it begins and ends with scripted scenes though in between you're able to move around just like you do in game. So, benchmark results do get a little varied, but surprisingly not much. This particular benchmark also scales well with resolution and AA / AF. We perform several benchmark runs and look closely at the results, usually there's only a maximum of 2 to 3 fps difference (from 20 or 30 fps) between runs. The results from repeated test are then used to compute an average.

The next game is quite an old game but a worthy successor to a classic Homeworld 2 from Relic Entertainment and Vivendi Universal. In Homeworld 2, we're using the cinematic in the first chapter, where they Vaygr bombers first appeared and is attacking the Chimera station. It features both close up and far away shots, including the Sensors Manager mode and should be quite a balanced view of general gameplay in Homeworld 2. Since it's a cinematic, the results are similar with very little differences (1 fps at most from 55 to 183 fps – not noticeable in real life).

Since we don't have a copy of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 – Sith Lords, we're using the older game – the original SW: KOTOR. The graphics, effects and textures used are similar so you could expect the same level of performance on both games. Unlike Neverwinter Nights, SW: KOTOR uses DirectX 8 (partly due to its console heritage). We choose a cinematic sequence of a fight between a Jedi Knight and a Sith apprentice. They are fighting with lightsabers, with explosions (and smoke) in the background. This is the first Jedi vs Sith cinematic on the Endar Spire. This cinematic sequence also scales very well with resolution and AA / AF, considering this is an RPG that's quite rare. Variances are around 2 to 5 fps for 25 to 50 fps range.

[Previous Page]
[Go to top]
[Next Page]