Sapphire Radeon X850 XT PE: AGP 8X

Name: Sapphire Radeon X850 XT PE: AGP 8X - Page 5
Brand: Sapphire

by Marco Chiappetta — Thursday, May 19, 2005, 10:00 PM EDT

Performance Comparisons With Splinter Cell

Stealthy Combat

Splinter Cell

Splinter Cell's version 1.2 patch includes three prerecorded demos and incorporates a previously unavailable benchmarking tool. The demos included with the patch are somewhat limited by CPU performance, however, so we opted for the custom "Oil Rig" demo created by the folks at Beyond 3D to test with this game. Beyond 3D's demo is targeted squarely at Pixel Shader performance. Shaders are used to render realistic-looking ocean water surrounding an oil rig in the demo, as well as simulating a night vision effect for a brief period. Take note that anti-aliasing doesn't work with Splinter Cell in its current state. Due to this fact, we do not have any AA scores listed in the graphs below.

Splinter Cell proved to be another game that the Sapphire Radeon X850XT Platinum Edition, and the ATI Built X850XT PE, had no trouble with. At both resolutions, the Radeon X850 PEs finished the test with the highest performance, just barely edging out the GeForce 6800 Ultra at 1024x768, but pulling ahead by about 12% when we increased the resolution to 1600x1200.

Tags: Radeon, Sapphire, App, SAP, XT, AG, X8, AP

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com