X-bit labs

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX: Monstrous Gaming Performance Unleashed (page 6)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin

[ 06/23/2005 | 04:11 PM ]

Half-Life 2

Once again we have the speed of the game suppressed by system components other than the graphics card: the results are almost identical here. The scene recorded on this level is generally similar to the one we made on the Pier level of Far Cry or on UT2004’s Torlan, so we shouldn’t be surprised to have a speed ceiling here.

The improved architecture of the G70 chip shows its full glory in this test: the single GeForce 7800 GTX performs on the same level with the SLI kit of two GeForce 6800 Ultra. The SLI configuration of two new cards from NVIDIA hits against the performance ceiling set by the system’s central processor.

The demo recorded on the d3_c17_02 map relies rather too heavily on the CPU performance, being a street fighting scene. The limiting factors here are the geometry-processing speed of the graphics processor and – even more important – the speed of the central processor.

We can make comparisons only for high resolutions of the “eye candy” mode. The GeForce 7800 GTX is in the lead, but is closely followed by the technologically less advanced RADEON X850 XT Platinum Edition. This demo doesn’t seem to reveal the advantages of the new graphics architecture.