X3: Reunion
Now let's examine how well these cards work with the beautiful X3: Reunion graphics engine. Firstly, the new Athlon64 Benches at 1280x1024 with 2x AA:
All of the cards seem to be bottlenecked at 1280x1024, even on the faster processor. Let's contrast this with the results on the older AthlonXP 2500+:
Same story, lower frame rates. The difference is that the Athlon64 architecture seems to boost the frame rates of this game by about 15 fps: that is a very worthwhile boost indeed.
Let's see what happens when we kick the resolution up a few notches to 1600x1200. First, the Athlon64 3400+:
At this higher resolution, we see the limiting factor shift from processor to video card. The X1950 PROs keep the frame rate they had at a lower resolution, but the less powerful Geforce cards are struggling a bit. Note that the minimum frame rates are pretty constant for all cards, which is another indication that this title is very CPU dependant.
Let's compare this resolution to the results we got on the Athlon XP 2500+:
See how the platform is limiting the maximum frame rates? The X1950 PRO is able to provide a bit more kick on the 3400+, but on the 2500+ the performance is limited by the CPU across the board.
