Performance in Third Person 3D Shooters

Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow

Having been ported from a game console, this third-person shooter isn’t rich in textures, but abounds in pixel shaders. The shaders are complex, but not as much as to become a problem for the RADEON X600 architecture. Just take a look at the diagram: the Extreme AX600 XT/HTVD outperforms the GeForce 6600 in all resolutions. Well, the gap is diminishing in high display rates, but the ASUS is still better. Overclocking adds it some more speed.

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

The GeForce 6600 feels more at its ease in this game than in Splinter Cell. Its advantage isn’t overwhelming, though – the overclocked Extreme AX600 XT/HTVD has the same results. We want to remind you that we perform our tests manually in Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow and in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, so the numbers are approximations.

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

Max Payne is no leader in visual effects, either. Working at the default frequencies, the Extreme AX600 XT/HTVD is slightly behind the GeForce 6600. When overclocked, the ASUS graphics card has the same speed as the new-generation solution from NVIDIA.

The eye candy mode poses a problem for the GeForce 6600 with its very slow memory, so the Extreme AX600 XT/HTVD wins here. The gap becomes wider as we overclock the ASUS card: the considerable growth of the core and memory frequencies have a most positive effect on the performance.