Matching Doom3 With The Best Graphics Card

Conclusion

The Doom3 world belongs to NVIDIA. The new NVIDIA GeForce 6800 models proved to offer the best performance for Doom3. Even ATI's latest top-of-the-line model, the Radeon X800 XT PE, has to admit defeat to the less expensive GeForce 6800 GT. The X800 Pro clearly loses out to the GeForce 6800 (standard).

Doom fanatics who want the optimal graphics card specifically for Doom3 cannot get by without a GeForce 6800. Of course, that is not to say that the X800 models offer really poor performance in Doom3, and naturally their performance with Doom3 cannot be applied to other games. The new ATI beta driver clearly boosts the performance of the X800 cards, but they will not be able to break the dominance of the GeForce 6800 cards. ATI fans can only hope for further driver improvements, which will be all the more important when new games based on the Doom3 engine are released to the market. With ATI cards that are not part of the X800 series, the new driver brings very little to no improvement.

With mainstream cards, it's a different picture. The game can be played without any problems with the GeForce 5950 and 5700U as well as with the Radeon 9800XT and 9600XT. However, the resolution has to be reduced in order get acceptable frame rates for gameplay. With GeForce FX 5200U, Radeon 9600SE and 9200, smooth gameplay is impossible, even at 800x600 low-quality settings. The only thing that helps in this case is to turn off the graphics effects, which in turn, takes a large chunk out of the game's atmosphere.

For an optimal gaming experience with Doom3, we recommend the following:

• Upper price level ($350-max):
  NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra
  NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
• Upper mainstream ($200-$350):
  NVIDIA GeForce 6800
• Mainstream ($100-$200):
  ATI Radeon 9600XT
  NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra
• Entry Level
  Currently no cards recommended