ATI Radeon HD Refresh: The 3650 and 3450 Arrive
Our Test System and 3DMark06
HOW WE CONFIGURED THE TEST SYSTEMS: We tested all of the graphics cards used in this article on either an EVGA nForce 680i SLI motherboard (NVIDIA GPUs) or an Asus P5E3 Deluxe (ATI GPUs) powered by a Core 2 Extreme QX6850 quad-core processor and 2GB of low-latency Corsair RAM. The first thing we did when configuring the test systems was enter their respective BIOSes and set all values to their "optimized" or "performance" default settings. Then we manually configured the memory timings and disabled any integrated peripherals that wouldn't be put to use. The hard drive was then formatted, and Windows Vista Ultimate was installed. When the installation was complete we fully updated the OS, and installed the latest DX10 redist and various hotfixes along with the necessary drivers and applications.
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Video Cards - Memory - Audio - Hard Drive - |
Hardware Used: |
OS - DirectX - Video Drivers - Synthetic (DX) - DirectX - DirectX - DirectX - DirectX - OpenGL - |
Relevant Software: Windows Vista Ultimate DirectX 10 NVIDIA Forceware v169.09 ATI Catalyst v8.1 Benchmarks Used: 3DMark06 v1.0.2 Company of Heros - DX10 Crysis - DX10 Half Life 2: Episode 2* Enemy Territory: Quake Wars* * - Custom Test (HH Exclusive demo) |
Performance Comparisons with 3DMark06 v1.0.2
Details: www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark06
3DMark06 3DMark06 is the most recent addition to the 3DMark franchise. This version differs from 3Dmark05 in a number of ways, and includes not only Shader Model 2.0 tests, but Shader Model 3.0 and HDR tests as well. Some of the assets from 3DMark05 have been re-used, but the scenes are now rendered with much more geometric detail and the shader complexity is vastly increased as well. Max shader length in 3DMark05 was 96 instructions, while 3DMark06 ups that number to 512. 3DMark06 also employs much more lighting and there is extensive use of soft shadows. With 3DMark06, Futuremark has also updated how the final score is tabulated. In this latest version of the benchmark, SM 2.0 and HDR / SM3.0 tests are weighted and the CPU score is factored into the final tally as well.
According to 3DMark06's default benchmark, the new Radeon HD 3650 finishes just behind the Radeon HD 2600 XT. The more expensive, and more powerful Radeon HD 3850 doubles the 3650's performance, and the GeForce 8600 GTS outpaces it by about 1800 points.
If we drill down and look at 3DMark06's individual results, we see how the Radeon HD 3650 fared in the shader model 2.0 and shader model 3.0 / HDR tests. Once again, the new Radeon finishes just behind the 2600 XT regardless of which shader model is used.
