|
We have only had
a GeForce FX 5200 Ultra in our possession for a relatively
short period of time, so we have not been able to assess its
visual output quality as thoroughly as we would have liked.
What we have for you below is a quick look at Quake 3 Arena,
with and without Antialiasing and Anisotropic filtering.
These shots were taken at 1024x768, with Quake 3's in-game
graphical options set to maximum. We used the Radeon's
Quality 4X AA setting and the GeForce FX's "Balanced" 4X AA
method. Anisotropic filtering was maxed in both sets
of drivers but remember ATi's older products, like the R9000
we used here, cannot process Trilinear filtering when
Anisotropic filtering is enabled. The Radeon 9000 will
drop back down to bilinear filtering, in this situation.
 |
|
In
Game Screenshots with Quake 3 Arena |
|
Quick and Dirty |
|
As you look
through the above screen captures, please keep in mind that
some quality is lost, when the images are converted to
JPEGs, although we used very low compression. The
second, smaller images at the right, are the upper right
corner of the screen, enlarged 700%. Without any
Antialiasing or Anisotropic filtering, both shots look very
similar. However, we would have to give a slight
edge to the GeForce FX 5200 Ultra. The textures in the
distance just seem to be slightly sharper in our opinion.
When we enabled AA and Aniso, however, our feelings are
mixed. The GeForce FX 5200 Ultra clearly does a better
job than the Radeon 9000 at eliminating jaggies, but in the
process, textures get blurred significantly. NVIDIA
has stated that the GeForce FX's Anisotropic filtering
capabilities and performance will change in future driver
releases, so expect these screen shots to be irrelevant in
the near future. We'll explore the GeForce FX's image
quality, when the product has some more time to mature.
Also, we should
note that the Radeon 9000 is driving ATi's legacy AA
Algorithm, that does not offer the higher quality Gamma
Corrected AA methods of their R9500, 9600, 9700 and 9800
product lines. These R9000 screenshots are
representative of the same sort of AA quality you would get
from a legacy Radeon 8500, for example. However,
ATi does have a mainstream / value product coming down the
pipe,
as we've already shown you. So a Radeon 9500 or
9600's AA quality would be a more apples to apples
comparison here. We'll have more on this subject, as
we get ATi product into the lab for evaluation.
As we mentioned
earlier the GeForce FX 5200 Ultra will debut at an MSRP of
$149, and you can currently find Radeon 9000 Pro 128MB cards
for less than $125 at
various on-line resellers. Keep an eye on both of
these products however, because things should be dropping
off sharply, once the 5200 Ultra actually gets into the
channel. We expect the GeForce FX 5200 Ultra's
"street" price to be much lower than suggested retail price
however, which would make this DX9 capable card, currently
the most feature rich product at its price point.
Overall performance was good for a mainstream part,
especially with AA and Aniso enabled. However, GeForce
4 Ti4200 or Radeon 8500 owners itching for an upgrade will
probably want to look elsewhere. First time system
builders looking for a decent gaming card would be well
served by a GeForce FX 5200 Ultra. In addition, we
suspect this card will find its way into many of the
pre-built PCs offered by most of the large OEMs, the same
position the GeForce 4 MX is in now.
Adding DX9
capabilities and greater performance, without significantly
increasing cost will make the GeForce FX 5200 very popular
with the OEMs. NVIDIA may be struggling at the
high-end, but they're mainstream parts should put up a good
fight. When we finally get our hands on ATi's new
R9200 and R9600 product, we'll be able to paint a clearer
picture of where each company stands in the mainstream
market. One thing is for sure, there should be a
fairly competitive 3D Graphics landscape for the next few
quarters.
There are a ton of folks just like you in HotHardware's PC
Hardware Forum
Go
Now!
|
