ATi's X800 Pulls Off Another Coup in the Graphics Performance War

FarCry

For our tests in FarCry we used two different timedemos (created by "Bug") that are currently available on the Internet. Cooler01 measures the performance in an indoor level (Cooler), Rebellion02 that in an outdoor level at night. The flashlight was turned on in all tests, and all quality settings were set to maximum. In addition to the average (AVG) frame rates, we also measured the minimum (MIN) fps.

Farcry Rebellion02 - Normal Quality

In the outdoor level, the X800 XT enjoys a clear performance advantage. The X800 Pro, meanwhile, draws level with the GeForce 6800 Ultra which itself can only reach this performance thanks to the new driver version. Looking only at the minimum frame rates, we were surprised to see the X800 cards fall behind.

According to NVIDIA, the previous driver version held back performance due to a Z-culling bug, which is now no longer present. Unfortunately, it does not improve image quality in FarCry (see Image Quality section further down).

Note: The Radeon 9800XT and the X800 cards offer higher image quality in FarCry. We are not certain whether the GeForce 6800 Ultra benefits from its lower-precision shaders, and to what degree. See the Image Quality section for more details.