Splinter Cell

We used the Beyond3D demo, and ran the cards through the gamut. There are problems with AA, so we'll only be presenting no AA results.

At 1280x768, you'll lose about 30% of 1024's performance on the AIW 9600 XT. Compare this with the loss of about 37% on the FX 5700 Ultra, and we can see that the 9600 XT holds it's performance a little better when moving up in resolution. Then again, neither card has what I would call smooth gameplay at 1280 resolution.

FarCry

Not a game with the most intriguing of storylines, there's enough action is this ultra-violent shooter to keep those waiting for the next big thing happy. We used the which improves shader speed for GeForce FX based cards, along with other fixes. A manual run through the first level using FRAPS gives us our results.

The AIW 9600 XT has the best performance between the three, but even that isn't so impressive. During the quiet moments, all three cards averaged in the mid-70s in terms of framerates, but once the action started rolling, we saw dips in the mid-teens, and in the case of the FX5700, sometimes in the single digit category.

1024 is totally playable for single player, but I found our test system got bogged down as the action intensified. For multiplayer fans, actual gameplay was very uneven and choppy, and in my opinion, with a 9600 XT class of card, you're going to want to seriously consider playing at 800x600 if you want a smooth experience. 1280 was simply unplayable, and not recommended at all for single or multiplayer.

Overclocking

To be honest, the market segments of the AIW 9600 XT aren't going to be enthusiasts and gamers, so it's unlikely many people will pick up the AIW with the intention of overclocking it. However, we know it's something that is going to happen, and with the large heatsink used on the AIW 9600 XT, it'll be interesting to see what kind of performance boost we will get.

The core was done first, keeping the memory at 325MHz. From 525MHz, we topped off at 580MHz. At 585MHz, we experienced lockups when trying to run some benchmarks, and as we lowered the core speed down stability slowly returned until the card was rock solid at 580MHz. Temperatures wavered in the in the mid-forties, spiking as high as 47°C while benchmarking.

We bumped the core down to 500MHz, and began moving the memory clock up. Eventually, we topped out at 353MHz. Anything higher resulted in either dropped textures, or image noise during benchmarks.

When we overclocked both the core and memory together, we settled for a 576/347 core and memory overclock. Since both items were being overclocked, we weren't able to run either component as high as we were able to when ran alone. What did this do for performance?

Splinter Cell, AIW OC'd @ 576/347

The faster VPU/Memory gives us a larger boost at 1280 than we get at 1024. Neither resolution gives what I would consider remarkable performance gains, but for those of you who need the extra 0.22 - 3.26 frames per second, OC away.

3D Image Quality

3D gaming image quality has never been a problem with past ATI cards, and trend continues for the AIW 9600 XT. I do dabble with a fair amount of 3D shooters, and although speed is important to me, I don't play with bitmaps turned off, and contrast set to maximum. the whole point is to become immersed in the experience.

3D Image quality will be compared with the MSI FX5950 Ultra-VTD256.

FarCry

9600 XT No AA/AF	FX 5960 No AA/AF

As we can see above, the image quality is pretty close between the two cards. However, it appears that the texture shading is better implemented on the FX card. Taking a look at the raft at the bottom of the image, it appears more realistic than it does on the ATI card.

9600 XT 4xAA/8xAF	FX 5960 4xAA/8xAF

Bumping up the AA and AF, we can see some of the edges appear a bit smoother, particularly on the grass and leaves. Again, I found ATI's IQ a bit more washed out than the FX, at least where FarCry is concerned.