Call of Duty: (OpenGL) - Map: VL_brecourt

No AA/AF

This is Viperlair's homemade demo so we could get a more realistic gameplay result. The results of which, well, lets say they were less than flattering to everyone but the 9600XT.

4xAA/4xAF

As you can see, the 9600XT beat up on the RX600 Pro-Guru and the N5900 hands down, not by just a little bit mind you, we are talking close to a 45% gain over the N5900 and 12% gain over the RX600. With both PCIe cards not fairing well in CoD, it makes me wonder what is going on here. As we will see next in Quake III, it is not the Quake III engine, but the modifications that CoD has done to that engine. This does make for an interesting result doesn't it :).

Quake III: (OpenGL) - four.dm_67

No AA/AF

The frame rates here are high, even with AA/AF turned up we get nice returns from all of the graphics cards.

4xAA/4xAF

Once again I am amazed, and disappointed, at the underwhelming performance of the RX600 Pro-Guru. The 9600XT keeps pace, all the way through AA/AF, and the N5900 Extreme, well, it just outperforms.

Image Quality - Doom3

At medium quality 800x600 the RX600 Pro-Guru N5900 plays well enough. There is the occasional hiccup during heavy action but the card recovers quickly and allot of the eye candy is still on for you to enjoy. It is "unplayable" for the most part at 1024x768, as you will encounter many hiccups during even minimal action.

While here, lets take a look at the image we get from Doom3 at 1280x1024, first without AA and AF, then with 4xAA and 8xAF. Compare the RX600 Pro-Guru to that of the N5900 Extreme's No AA/AF and 4xAA/8xAF, see any difference? Looks to me that NVIDIA has not only closed the gap, they have passed ATI when it comes to image presentation.

DVI --> HDTV

Unfortunately, do not have a television that has a DVI input. Thankfully, I have repaired several computers and get along grand with my neighbors. They just happen to have purchased a Samsung 56" DLP within the last 2 months (3rd Generation Chip), and oh ya, it has a DVI connector that requires HDCP.

There is also a HDMI input, however that cable does not come with the ABIT RX600 Pro-Guru. I brought over some recorded HDTV material from my HTPC machine and the ATI HDTV Wonder as well as my keyboard and mouse :).

The picture quality that comes out of the DVI interface into a HDTV is nothing short of breath taking. Posting pictures of it just couldn't do it justice. Once I was done watching the recorded video I proceeded to play a few games to check out the response. Even though the image size was overwhelming, a little bit of Quake III showed noticeable artifacting, as the Samsung just couldn't draw the image fast enough. Overall, piping this card into a high end HDTV is very impressive, however, your original content has to be just as impressive.

Overclocking

ABIT includes OC Guru in their vGuru utility, this is an easy to use and monitor program that includes nice to have features such as "Fan EQ, which allows the system to accommodate temperature increases with an increase in fan rotation. This way they hope to protect your (and their) investment by keeping it cool during heavy work. In my tests, Fan EQ worked flawlessly and kept the VPU at respectful temperatures no matter what I attempted.

Since we had the hardest time with Far Cry and Doom3, I figure those are two good games to test the overclock with (nicely fitting one DirectX based and one OpenGL based as well) The best scenario I was able to achieve was a 527MHz GPU paired to a 263MHz Memory. I could go much further separately, with both mind you, this produced the best results.

Doom 3	Far Cry

From the stand point of a 400MHz VPU overclocking to 527MHz, that is a very large OC indeed. Being in "Turbo" mode (500MHz) to begin with, this is a minimal OC. The results are less than spectacular. There is an increase of performance, however slight, but there is also an increase of freeze ups. As the RX600 froze during 2 tests, requiring me to run them over again, and pass.

As always, overclocking can damage your equipment, your use of the included ABIT software to overclock the VPU is at your own risk.

Final Words

Pain Killer:
Even though I did not benchmark it, I enjoy playing PK. The 9600XT could play it fairly well @ 1024x768 on medium settings, with a few hiccups here and there. The RX600 Pro-Guru played similarly as the 9600XT, maybe a little smoother on the heavy action scenes, but overall hardly noticeable difference. To date, the ASUS N5900 Extreme has played Pain Killer the best for me (granted I have not had the luxury of the High End Graphics cards).

Doom3:
At medium quality 800x600 the RX600 Pro-Guru N5900 plays well enough. There is the occasional hiccup during heavy action but the card recovers quickly and allot of the eye candy is still on for you to enjoy. It is "unplayable" for the most part at 1024x768, although you will encounter many hiccups during heavy action

UT2K4:
ATI is supposed to have the advantage when it comes to DirectX, for the RX600, this was not apparent. UT2K4 played smoothly with the RX600, and seemed render the graphics nicely. Gameplay was not noticeably better or worse than the N5900 or the 9600XT.

Far Cry:
This game is not really my cup of tea mind you, but it is a graphically intense game and there is a lot to take in while sneaking about the island. The RX600 Pro-Guru performed well. This is probably the only game in my arsenal that I can honestly say I saw the RX600 outperform the other cards in this test. There was a definite image quality enhancement when playing this with the RX600 Pro-Guru.

I honestly was hoping for a greater performance gap between the RX600 Pro-Guru and the 9600XT. I was also expecting a close competition between the N5900 and the RX600, this never really came to fruition. Even with the apparent advantage of direct PCIe communications and not going through a "bridge" wasn't enough to overcome the advantage of the N5900 GPU over the RX600's Using the RX600 Pro-Guru for a high end HDTV set graphics feed is definitely a sweet spot, as the RX600 steps up to the challenge, and then some. I fully expect to see some of these in HTPC's once PCIe gains popularity in the micro ATX form factor.

Pros:
Near silent during day to day operation when using Fan EQ in Non-Turbo Mode
Very nice utility package, easy to overclock
Looks good behind that windowed side panel
Great HDTV reproduction through a pre-compliant interface

Cons:
Turbo Mode, Just clock it at 500MHz
Turbo Mode light is RED
Performance on par with 9600XT, not current Midrange GPU
No Heat Sinks on rear memory modules

Bottom Line: ABIT has delivered a fine video card, its not their fault that ATI hasn't given them the VPU to compete. ABIT has put a nice package around a so-so card, giving it a little more life (just a little), as it appears, most new games will render (I know, punny) this particular VPU pretty much useless beyond 800x600. If you are looking to build a HTPC on the PCIe format, look no further, the RX600 is easy to use and gives a picture you would be proud of. I only ask that ABIT either get rid of the silly Turbo jumper or change the color of the LED (I am soldering on a Blue one as we speak)...