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Regardless of whether or not you
think Futuremark's 3DMark03 is a meaningful benchmark, the
bottom line is that it remains one of the only programs out
there that uses DirectX 9 class pixel and vertex shaders (at
least in one of the tests!) in a simulated game environment.
Until we have some true DX9 class games available to
accurately test performance, 3DMark03 is "it". We ran
3DMark03 on all of the cards represented here, at the
benchmark's default settings...
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Benchmarks
With 3DMark03 |
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The
Controversial Synthetic DX9 Benchmark |
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LEADTEK A300 ULTRA TD |
RADEON 9800 PRO |
RADEON 9700 PRO |
RADEON 9500 PRO |
The 3DMark03 overall scores show
the Leadtek A300 Ultra and Radeon 9800 Pro performing at
virtually identical levels (5404 vs. 5410), with both cards
coming in a comfortable margin ahead of the 9700 and 9500
Pros. Pay attention to the performance results from
the individual tests though. You'll notice the Leadtek
card pulled ahead of the Radeon 9800 Pro in only the "Mother
Nature" and the Multi-Texturing Fill Rate tests. All
of the other tests belong to the 9800 Pro.
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Head-to-Head Performance
With
Comanche 4 |
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Looks
Like Recent New Footage |
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Next up, we have some numbers
from an actual DirectX 8 class game, Novalogic's combat
helicopter simulator, Comanche 4. Comanche 4 makes use
of DX8 pixel and vertex shaders to produce some of the
realistic visuals used throughout the game. This
benchmark is heavily influenced by CPU and system memory
performance, so don't be confused by what look like
relatively "low" frame rates here...
At 1024x768 without AA and with
4X AA enabled, all of the cards except for the GeForce 4 Ti
4600 perform at similar levels. Once we enabled 6X AA
and Anisotropic filtering however, the Radeon 9800 Pro led
the pack, followed by the 9700 Pro and then the FX 5800
Ultra powered Leadtek A300 Ultra. When the resolution
was raised to 1600x1200, we have a similar scenario, with
the Radeon 9800 Pro outpacing all of the other cards, in
every configuration. In the "4X AA + Aniso" tests, the
A300 Ultra did manage to nudge ahead of the 9700 Pro, by a
very slim margin.
Some Quake 3 & UT2003 Benchmarks
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