Conclusion
So here they are, the new cards from ATi and NVIDIA. The FX 5950 Ultra is only marginally faster than the FX 5900 Ultra. And the improvements of the 9800 XT and the 9600 XT over the previous Pro models are also small, at best. Only the FX 5700 Ultra really feels like a step up from its predecessor. This is a good thing, too, as the FX 5600 Ultra's prowess was fading fast in our new benchmark suite.
Does that mean these new products are superfluous or unnecessary? Judging only from the performance numbers, then the answer has to be a clear "Yes!"
From the consumer's perspective, the introduction of these new cards, necessary or not, has a positive secondary effect on pricing. New models always mean plummeting prices on existing hardware. Choosing the "older" model will save buyers a lot of money while offering performance almost identical to that of the newcomers. As mentioned before, the only exception is the FX 5700 Ultra.
Looking at the benchmark results in available games, buyers now have the choice between the FX 5700 Ultra and the Radeon 9600 XT in the mainstream segment. In the standard tests, both cards offer virtually identical performance. With FSAA and anisotropic enabled, however, the ATi card shines.
IF prices do drop, the Radeon 9600 Pro could well become the insider's choice, taking the Radeon 9500 Pro's place, which remains a great value, if you can still find it. Thanks to its eight-pipe design, it offers solid performance in DirectX 9 games.
In the enthusiast segment, the FX 5950 makes a good impression. The trouble is, it is only slightly faster than the FX 5900 and tends to place behind the Radeon 9800 cards. While that prevents it from being the fastest card in this review, that doesn't make it slow by any standard.
Those planning to upgrade to a high-performance card should consider taking one of the previous high-end models. The Radeon 9800 Pro, for example, is only marginally slower than the much pricier XT model. Besides, 256 MB of RAM are not a requirement for today's generation of games. This may change in future games that make use of large textures or calculate complex DirectX 9 effects at a high level of precision (soft shadows, for example). It is up to the individual buyer to decide how much he or she wants to invest into a future that, in this industry, is always uncertain. At any rate, if prices do come down, the "old" FX 5900 Ultra with 256 MB of RAM may become the next hot item.
With the new ForceWare driver, NVIDIA has done much to improve performance especially in the newer DirectX 9 games - and without having to sacrifice image quality. And speaking of image quality: Where anisotropic filtering is concerned, NVIDIA even has the upper hand. It does, however, have to take second place to ATi's FSAA implementation.
The irregularities ATi's drivers allegedly display in AquaMark 3 and UT2003 require further investigation. Factors such as image quality, driver reliability, and compatibility are hard to convey in a review anyway. Then again, game developers such as Gearbox (Halo), Epic (Unreal Tournament), and EA (Battlefield 1942) all give NVIDIA good grades in this respect. Surely, NVIDIA's close contact with game developers will help to improve the image quality and the performance of current and future DX9 games even further.
So NVIDIA and ATi have put their new graphics cards on the table. That still leaves other contenders, such as XGI and S3, to introduce their latest and greatest cards as early as within a few weeks. The graphics war this winter is likely to be anything but cold. And the really good news is that there will be some great gaming cards out there that can be bought on the cheap.
