There are
3DMark 2001SE and
3DMark 2005 by MadOnion /
Futuremark to serve the purpose of synthetical benchmarking. 3DMark 2001SE build
330 is almost 5 years old but still has some interesting tests to offer. First
of all, those synthetical completely Fill Rate and High Polygon Count, though
Nature is a good one as well. 3DMark 2005 is able to use pixel and vertex
shaders v3.0, and they happen to be a must have for modern 3D gaming titles. One
must note that shaders of 3DMark 2005 are written in HLSL and compiled at
run-time rather than written in assembly language and pre-compiled, so they may
lack optimisation. Unfortunately, many 3D software developers follow this
popular trend. Both 3DMark 2001SE and 3DMark 2005 operate through Direct3D.
This test illustrates how fast a scene can be filled, i. e. texturing
and rasterising speed. It constains almost no geometry data, so there is a very
little to zero dependence on processor speed or video memory size.
Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro has outperformed BFG GeForce 7800GS OC, though
with the help of overclocking the latter has almost reached the leader in
single-texturing and even outrun it in multitexturing. Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro
and Sapphire Radeon 9600XT are much slower and their results are close to each
other. That's quite reasonable considering their architecture and clock speeds.
This test renders a scene with several objects moving dynamically and either
1 or 8 active lights. There is almost no texturing (background only), so it
doesn't depend much on video memory bandwidth. It's a matter of vertex pipelines
mostly to deliver high results in this test.
Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro (8 vertex pipelines) is an undisputable
leader, though BFG GeForce 7800GS OC (6 vertex pipelines) delivers not much worse
performance especially if overclocked. Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro (5 vertex
pipelines) looks good, and Sapphire Radeon 9600XT (2 vertex pipelines) has
nothing outstanding to show.
Well, Nature is considered fairly as the most beautiful game test of the
3DMark 2001SE suite. It employs vertex shaders v1.0 to produce a wind effect on
grass and trees' leaves, also to calculate movements of the fisherman and
butterflies. Pixel shaders v1.0 together with multitexturing are involved in
generation of the water surface.
Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro leads the run keeping BFG GeForce 7800GS OC not so
far behind. It's clear to see that Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro is over than 3
times slower than the leader, and Sapphire Radeon 9600XT isn't any better.
The other game tests of the 3DMark 2001SE suite (Car Chase, Dragothic and
Lobby) don't use pixel shaders at all, so they're of a little value nowadays
from the point of game design. However, they depend well on texturing and
rasterising speed. Yes, somewhere back in the past it has been of key importance
for 3D graphics hardware. Anyway, refer to the following tables.
3DMark 2001SE (1280x1024x32bpp), Low detail, average FPS |
|
Car Chase |
Dragothic |
Lobby |
BF NoAA |
16xAF NoAA |
16xAF 4xMSAA |
BF NoAA |
16xAF NoAA |
16xAF 4xMSAA |
BF NoAA |
16xAF NoAA |
16xAF 4xMSAA |
Sapphire X1950 Pro |
279 |
275 |
263 |
461 |
430 |
366 |
284 |
276 |
258 |
BFG 7800GS OC o/c |
334 |
325 |
277 |
482 |
437 |
292 |
311 |
308 |
268 |
BFG 7800GS OC |
325 |
307 |
246 |
425 |
380 |
256 |
309 |
303 |
246 |
Sapphire X1600 Pro o/c |
262 |
167 |
119 |
235 |
196 |
134 |
228 |
144 |
104 |
Sapphire X1600 Pro |
241 |
147 |
106 |
214 |
175 |
123 |
208 |
127 |
94 |
Sapphire 9600XT o/c |
180 |
133 |
87 |
191 |
167 |
106 |
190 |
127 |
86 |
Sapphire 9600XT |
159 |
114 |
73 |
160 |
140 |
85 |
156 |
107 |
71 |
The tests in low detail mode have revealed that both Sapphire Radeon X1950
Pro and BFG GeForce 7800GS OC deliver comparable results, but with the help of
overclocking the second card has become the winner with the only exception of
Dragothic rendered through 16x anisotropic filtering and 4x multisampled
anti-aliasing. Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro appears to be about 20% faster than
Sapphire Radeon 9600XT.
3DMark 2001SE (1280x1024x32bpp), High detail, average FPS |
|
Car Chase |
Dragothic |
Lobby |
BF NoAA |
16xAF NoAA |
16xAF 4xMSAA |
BF NoAA |
16xAF NoAA |
16xAF 4xMSAA |
BF NoAA |
16xAF NoAA |
16xAF 4xMSAA |
Sapphire X1950 Pro |
95 |
94 |
93 |
224 |
222 |
210 |
130 |
129 |
125 |
BFG 7800GS OC o/c |
109 |
109 |
109 |
244 |
230 |
190 |
145 |
145 |
140 |
BFG 7800GS OC |
108 |
108 |
107 |
221 |
203 |
166 |
145 |
144 |
135 |
Sapphire X1600 Pro o/c |
105 |
89 |
69 |
158 |
139 |
96 |
124 |
89 |
71 |
Sapphire X1600 Pro |
104 |
81 |
61 |
144 |
117 |
89 |
117 |
80 |
64 |
Sapphire 9600XT o/c |
91 |
71 |
50 |
121 |
106 |
71 |
108 |
79 |
57 |
Sapphire 9600XT |
82 |
62 |
42 |
106 |
93 |
59 |
94 |
69 |
48 |
Although the tests in high detail mode are known for their processor
dependent reputation, it's interesting still to take a look at their results.
Sapphire X1950 Pro has delivered unexpectedly low performance in Car Chase,
even slower than Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro in case of bilinear filtering and no
anti-aliasing. In general, BFG GeForce 7800GS OC has won this round. It seems
that developers of ATI Catalyst have got many things to improve.
Having first conclusions made, let's continue with 3DMark 2005.
Return to Proxycon features advanced geometry (the hangar with many
high-detailed objects including those moving dynamically) and advanced lighting
(up to 8 sources). Pixel shaders are also used widely. The view is limited by
walls of the hangar and corridor which is typical for most 3D action games.
Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro has shown finally what it can do by outperforming
BFG GeForce 7800GS OC for 52% to 88% in average FPS. Even the latter card with
overclocking is far behind. Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro looks not bad, but it has
a long way to reach even BFG GeForce 7800GS OC.
Firefly Forest depends on vertex performance mostly because of trees and
grass: branches of the first move with the wind, and the second just needs to be
generated dynamically. In a matter of fact, there are only 2 lighting sources:
the moon which is a statical one and the flying light which is a dynamical one.
Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro is on rampage in this test. As you can see, it
delivers better minimal FPS than average FPS by the primary competitor even if
overclocked. Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro looks not bad still, but nothing more.
Canyon Flight employs advanced very much pixel shaders to generate walls of
the canyon and the water surface. There are different fog effects to take place
as well. Geometry of objects is moderate, the sun serves as the only lighting
source.
Once again, Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro is far ahead outperforming BFG GeForce
7800GS OC for about 70% in average FPS. Once again, Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro
has nothing to boast with.
Overall, Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro is the only and undisputable leader in
3DMark 2005. BFG GeForce 7800GS OC has possessed the second place, but its
results are closer to Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro which holds the third place
than to the winner. As it has been expected, Sapphire Radeon 9600XT has rendered
many good slide-shows. In general, 3DMark 2005 depends very much on pixel shader
performance, therefore it shouldn't be a miracle that Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro
has been able to prevail so hard. Considering 1024x768 with trilinear filtering
and no anti-aliasing enabled, it has scored about 9500 marks. BFG GeForce 7800GS
OC has managed to get about 5800 marks before the overclocking and about 6900
after. Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro has been tough enough to obtain about 4100
marks before the overclocking and about 4500 after, Sapphire Radeon 9600XT
— about 2000 and 2400 respectively. With bilinear filtering which is set
by default ("Optimal") the scores would be approx. 2% higher. Just in case, you
can calculate scores for any particular mode using average FPS from the diagrams
above and the following formula from the 3DMark 2005 help:
(test1 x test2 x test3)^1/3 x 250