ATI Radeon 9800 XT: We take a look at ATI's flagship pixel pusher, and see where it fits in today's and tomorrow's market.
Date:
February 4, 2004
Manufacturer:
Written By:
Price:
UT2003
Unreal Tournament 2003 is a standard benchmark here at Viperlair, as well as at most other places. It offers very good graphics along with decent gameplay. As such it does pose a test for video cards, so lets see how the 9800XT performs here.
Video Card
Minimum FPS
Average FPS
Maximum FPS
MSI FX5900 Ultra Oc'd:
90.10924
149.90
200.5383
MSI FX5900 Ultra:
90.07781
150.59
206.8467
ATI Radeon 9800XT:
97.36568
158.25
198.0816
ATI Radeon 9800XT 459/385:
98.8516
161.52
196.7783
Matrox Parhelia:
61.14269
77.28
94.7638
Radeon 9000 AiW:
43.6987
57.46
77.14979
We see from these initial results that the Radeon 9800XT shows better performance at the basic resolution of 1024*768. With a lead of anywhere from 5-7% the 9800XT seems to have a healthy lead in this DirectX based game. The difference between the stock speeds and the overclocked settings is about 2% which means that the video card isn't much of a limiting factor here. Compared to the older cards this 9800XT simply destroys the Parhelia and the slower 9000 Pro. What happens when we enable AA and ansio?
Video Card
Minimum FPS
Average FPS
Maximum FPS
MSI FX5900 Ultra Oc'd:
84.92226
123.17
155.8243
MSI FX5900 Ultra:
85.71924
115.12
155.4476
ATI Radeon 9800XT:
95.76498
116.92
172.1375
ATI Radeon 9800XT 459/385:
98.92644
124.97
172.6111
Matrox Parhelia:
27.89434
36.93
60.35887
Radeon 9000 AiW:
10.72575
14.62
23.98148
We see that the results are quite a bit closer between the 9800XT and the 5900U. In fact the difference between the two cards is about 1.5% which is basically the same result. Overclocking here gains you almost a 7% increase in frame rate which is in line with the results in the other games we just looked at. When bumping up the quality settings here you lose about 30% of the original frame rate which isn't too bad for the quality gain you receive. What about if we bump up the resolution instead?
Video Card
Minimum FPS
Average FPS
Maximum FPS
MSI FX5900 Ultra Oc'd:
88.58468
124.62
155.6165
MSI FX5900 Ultra:
99.44684
113.61
137.6611
ATI Radeon 9800XT:
74.15789
94.88
138.5891
ATI Radeon 9800XT 459/385:
81.00367
102.38
147.5275
Matrox Parhelia:
26.83351
33.85
50.29846
Radeon 9000 AiW:
15.99292
24.14
43.83663
An interesting turn of events, the FX5900U performs better than the 9800XT in this test. The difference in frame rate is from 19-21% in favour of the FX5900U in this test, which is quite a bit when we are taking about 20fps difference at 100fps. The Radeon 9800XT loses over 65% of its 1024*768 frame rate here, while the FX5900U only loses 30% of its frame rate, or less. A dissappointing result here for the Radeon 9800XT but can it do better when we enable AA and ansio at this resolution?
Video Card
Minimum FPS
Average FPS
Maximum FPS
MSI FX5900 Ultra Oc'd:
46.92379
59.14
77.09355
MSI FX5900 Ultra:
38.38597
52.56
85.93354
ATI Radeon 9800XT:
37.50066
54.91
81.51596
ATI Radeon 9800XT 459/385:
41.62545
59.69
94.4379
Matrox Parhelia:
12.68326
16.72
30.68432
Here we see the same basic result as we have seen at 1024*768 with AA on. The two cards basically tie for the lead, with the 9800XT taking a small lead at stock speeds but with both cards still coming (slightly) under the 60fps rate that is considered playable by many. The 9800XT gets a 8% speed boost from overclocking here, taking it to almost 60fps, so if you can overclock a bit more you may get over 60fps with 4XAA and 8X ansiotropic filtering enabled. How about a newer Direct X based game, Max Payne 2, how fast is the 9800XT in this somewhat DirectX 9 game?
