F.E.A.R (DirectX) Map: Inception

This game is not only intense, it's engine demands high end hardware in order to be playable with any of the pretties enabled, its a true test for a midrange graphics card.

1280x800

1680x1050

Frames Per Second, Higher is better

Using Fraps to measure real world running and gunning, the EAX1650XT has problems painting the screen at 60FPS, we had to drop down to 1280x800 to get playable rates. As for the X1600Pro, well, it is last years midrange...

Call of Duty 2 (DirectX) - Map – Railroad Station #1 - SP

CoD2 is a stellar engine, with a lot of action happening all around you. Using Fraps I went through a demanding section of terrain and enemies (it was difficult staying alive for the full 2 minutes :P) to showcase what these cards could do.

1280x800

1680x1050

At 1680x1050 both cards had problems making it playable, 4xAA/8xAF only aggravated that. Dropping the resolution to 1280x800 made things better on the EAX1650XT, however, the X1600Pro still struggled to achieve playable status.

Quake 4 (OpenGL) - Map: MP – The Fragging Yard

Based on the Doom 3 Engine, Quake 4 is also visually stunning and id / Raven have updated it to 1.2, resolving a few of the Demo Playback issues previous versions had. VL built a server, provided 4 g0m0's for fodder and proceeded to game away while recording a demo. With TimeDemo enabled again, we are able to produce frame rates above 60 FPS, that is, if the card can handle it...

1680x1050

Although using the Doom3 engine, the performance is not as similar as one would expect. This is, in part, due to Quake4 is much brighter then Doom3 and there is a lot more for your graphics card to draw. This is especially apparent when you compare it to the dank dungeons for the Doom3 demo used. The EAX1650XT did not disappoint here, with the Doom3 engine getting aged, the midrange cards seem to have caught up with it. Of course, the X1600Pro performed admirable, but we are still unable to average above 60 FPS. When enable AA/AF, the EAX1650XT maintains a greater then 60 FPS average, allowing you to turn on the pretty in Q4 while at an extremely high resolution.

3dMark 2006

Although Synthetic, it does allow for comparison in like systems. I decided to mix things up a little here, so it is, unfortunately, going to be harder for you to compare. I have included a picture of the settings used.

(insert 3DMark-settings.jpg

In my previous review of the X1600Pro, this is where it shined, unfortunately, that shine has worn off and the EAX1650XT is a true step ahead.

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