Sapphire Radeon X800 XT - PCI Express
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 Halo |
For many gamers, the release of Halo marked the end of a long wait because it was originally released as an Xbox exclusive a few years back. No additional patches or tweaks are needed to benchmark with Halo, as Gearbox has included all of the necessary information in its README file. The Halo benchmark runs through four of the cut-scenes from the game, after which the average frame rate is recorded. We patched the game using the v1.05 patch and ran this benchmark twice, once at 1,024 x 768 and then again at 1,600 x 1,200. Anti-aliasing doesn't work properly with Halo, so all of the tests below were run with anti-aliasing disabled. |
At 1024x768, the 16-Pipeline cards (the Radeon X800 XTs and the GeForce 6800 GT) performed at near identical levels, with only a fraction of frame per second separating the top three finishers. The more mainstream X700 XT, however, fell behind the pack by roughly 22 frames per second, as it should considering its got half of the pixel pipelines and costs significantly less. When we cranked the resolution up to 1600x1200, the X800 XTs pulled slightly ahead of the 6800 GT, with the Sapphire X800 XT besting the GT by about 2 frames per second, and the X700 continued to bring up the rear.
