ATI Radeon X1K Refresh: X1950 XTX, X1900 XT 256MB, X1650 Pro, and X1300 XT
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;) Prey |
After many years of development, Take-Two Interactive recently released the highly anticipated game Prey. Prey is based upon an updated and modified version of the Doom 3 engine, and as such performance characteristics between the two titles are very similar. Like Doom 3, Prey is also an OpenGL game that uses extremely high-detailed textures and a plethora of dynamic lighting and shadows. But unlike Doom3, Prey features a fare share of outdoor environments as well. We ran these Prey benchmarks using a custom recorded timedemo with the game set to its "High-Quality" graphics mode, at resolutions of 1,280 x 1,024 and 1,600 x 1,200 with 4X AA and 16X anisotropic filtering enabled simultaneously. |
NVIDIA has traditionally dominated ATI in regard to OpenGL performance, especially in games that use the Doom 3 engine. Prey is one of the newest titles to use the Doom 3 engine, and as expected NVIDIA's flagship GeForce 7950 GX2 easily outpaced the Radeon X1950 XTX here. What's interesting to note, however, is that the X1950 XTX, and the 512 MB Radeon X1900 XTX for that matter, finished way ahead of the GeForce 7900 GTX in our custom Prey benchmark. By working closely with Take-Two Interactive and optimizing their Catalyst v6.8 drivers, ATI's performance is much stronger with the Doom 3 engine than it historically has been.
Things are much closer in the multi-GPU tests, but ultimately only there is only one change in the rankings. Quad-SLI is clearly the fastest configuration at both resolutions with Prey. The 7900 GTX SLI and Radeon X1950 XTX CrossFire rigs trade second place finishes depending on the resolution, and the X1900 XTX CrossFire rig brings up the rear -- but not by much. Only 2 - 6 frames per second separated the 7900 GTX SLI and X1900 XTX CrossFire configurations.
