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VR-Zone > ATi Radeon 2000 Series Launch: X2900XT Review Add VR-Zone Headlines in RSS
Sunday, May 13, 2007
[ATi Radeon 2000 Series Launch: X2900XT Review ]
Page Title: Test Platform, Drivers
Category: GPUs & Graphic Cards
Type: Reviews
Posted By: Shamino
Date: May 14, 2007, 3:55 am
Source: ATi
Actions: Print Article Email Del.icio.us Digg
When I first started testing the card, I was using the 8.36 Catalyst Drivers.
Then after I have finished running the test runs for the X2900XT, the 8.37 came and I had to rerun everything.
Thus, I took the chance to also compare the difference between these two slight Driver update. On the 8.37, there is no option of the 'High Quality' under AF options with the X2900XT while there is on the 8.36. There is the option when I put in the X1950XTX as well.
Seeing that the High Quality option for Anisotropic filtering was missing on the X2900XT on the 8.37 Drivers when it was present on the 8.36 drivers, I guessed that AF was automatically set at best quality when enabled for the X2900XT on this new set of drivers. So I ran a check between the 2 drivers with Oblivion to check out the Anisotropic Filtering. 1600x1200, 16x AF (High Quality when option was there), Temporal Anti-Aliasing at 8x Level and Wide-Tent Filter set at 16x Sampling.
The Filtering on the 8.37 is definitely at least on par or even better than the High Quality setting on the 8.36. You get the faint impression that textures seem to be slightly more detailed on the 8.37. So I didn't really care that the High Quality Option was missing on the 8.37 drivers with the X2900XT.
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Platform Test Setup
CPU
Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme Edition X6800 Overclocked @ 9 x 366MHz = 3.3GHz
Motherboard
ASUS P5K Deluxe (Intel P35 Chipset)
Memory
2 x 1GB GSkill F2-8000PHU2-2GBHZ DDR II set to run @ CL5-5-5-15, DDR2 915MHz, 5:4 Divider
Graphics Card
ATi HD X2900XT 743/828MHz
ASUS EN8800GTS 640MB 513/792MHz Inno3D 8800GTX 575/900MHz EVGA 8800GTS 320MB Superclocked 576/860MHz ASUS 1950XTX 648/1000MHz
USD$399 USD$399 USD$529 USD$299 USD$433
Hard Disk Drive
Seagate 80GB, 250GB Barracuda SATA Hard Disk Drives
PSU
SilverStone Zeus ST85ZF
Operating System
Windows XP Pro
One look and you can tell which segment this video card is gunning for: the USD$399 price point where the GeForce 8800 GTS resides, it's direct competitor.
Drivers Used on X2900XT and X1950XTX is Catalyst 8-37-4-070419a. Drivers used for 8800GTS 320/640MB and 8800GTX is Forceware 158.22.
MipMap Detail setting on all drivers set to maximum level of High Quality. 16x Anisotropic Filtering was turned on.
As of time of testing, we did not have the latest build just issued out 3 days before NDA was lifted. We were running 8-37-4-070419a.
The latest 8.37.4.2_47323 drivers is supposed to implement a new intelligent algorithm that increases FPS while applying similar image quality when running Adaptive Anti-Aliasing. In Oblivion, performance several times faster than previous drivers using the new adaptive AA algorithm was claimed to have been acheived. New optimizations for HDR applications in general resulted in a 5-30% increase in performance.
The 8.37.4.2_47323 is actually a pre-alpha driver, but it includes a preview of new 12xAA and 24xAA modes. These modes use an advanced edge detection filter that delivers edge quality while eliminating blurring.
Clock, Heat, Power < > Quake 4, Lost Coast
Page: 10 - Test Platform, Drivers Page: 1 - Radeon X2000 Series! ... Page: 2 - New Anti-Aliasing ... Page: 3 - DirectX 10 Demos ... Page: 4 - Radeon Mobility 2000 Series ... Page: 5 - Radeon HD X2600, X2400 Pictures ... Page: 6 - Radeon X2900XT Pictures ... Page: 7 - X2900XT Cooling ... Page: 8 - More Pictures ... Page: 9 - Clock, Heat, Power ... Page: 10 - Test Platform, Drivers ... Page: 11 - Quake 4, Lost Coast ... Page: 12 - Company Of Heroes, BattleField 2142 ... Page: 13 - NeverWinter Nights 2, Oblivion ... Page: 14 - 3D Mark 06... Page: 15 - Image Quality: 2900 16xAF vs 8800 16xAF... Page: 16 - Image Quality: Anisotropic Filtering Continued ... Page: 17 - Image Quality: Wide-Tent Anti-Aliasing... Page: 18 - Overclocking ... Page: 19 - Mod Her up!... Page: 20 - UnReal Overclocking! ... Page: 21 - Cold Bug? No!... Page: 22 - Conclusion ...
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