X-bit labs

The Fastest Graphics Cards of Summer 2004

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin , Tim Tscheblockov, Anton Shilov

[ 07/31/2004 | 04:02 PM ]

The Summer is here and it is time to buy new graphics cards and play the newest games. Since the market is flooded with offerings, it is pretty hard to decide which one is better for you. We have taken 13 high-end and mainstream graphics cards and benchmarked them in 35 gaming benchmarks to find out which are worth their money.

Table of contents:

• Introduction
  
• GeForce 6800 and RADEON X800: Debutants of this Season!
  
• NVIDIA GeForce 6800
  
• ATI RADEON X800
  
• Second-Tier Developers in 2004
  
• PCI Express Is Coming! (To Your System, Too)
  
• Optimization Wars: What about the Image Quality?
  
• Testbed and Methods
  
• First person 3D shooters
  
• Call of Duty
  
• RTCW: Enemy Territory
  
• Star Trek: Elite Force 2
  
• Unreal Tournament 2004
  
• Halo: Combat Evolved
  
• Deus Ex: Invisible War
  
• Far Cry
  
• Painkiller
  
• Tron 2.0
  
• FireStarter
  
• Breed
  
• America’s Army 2
  
• Highly Anticipated DirectX 9 Game 1
  
• Highly Anticipated DirectX 9 Game 2
  
• FPS, Quick Summary
  
• Third Person 3D Shooters
  
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
  
• Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
  
• Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness
  
• Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
  
• Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
  
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
  
• Thief: Deadly Shadows
  
• Hitman: Contracts
  
• Manhunt
  
• TPS, Quick Summary
  
• Simulators
  
• IL-2 Sturmovik: Aces in the Sky
  
• Lock On: Modern Air Combat
  
• Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004
  
• X2: The Threat
  
• F1 Challenge 99-02
  
• Colin McRae Rally 04
  
• Sport Simulation Games
  
• FIFA 2004
  
• Real-time Strategies
  
• C&C Generals: Zero Hour
  
• Perimeter
  
• Semi-Synthetic Benchmarks
  
• Final Fantasy XI Official Benchmark 2
  
• Aquamark3
  
• Synthetic benchmarks
  
• Futuremark 3DMark03, build 340
  
• Conclusion
  
• Graphics Cards with a recommended price of $499
  
• Graphics Cards with a Recommended Price of $399
  
• Graphics Cards with a Recommended Price of around $299
  
• Graphics Cards with a Recommended Price of $199 and Below
  
• A Few Final Remarks
  

Introduction

The passed half of the year 2004 established a new landmark in the development of consumer 3D graphics as the two graphics giants – NVIDIA Corporation and ATI Technologies – both unveiled their new generations of graphics processors. The birth of a new architecture is always an Outstanding Event; long before it really happens, the community starts boiling with variegated and contradicting rumors, grounded on the scraps of information from the companies themselves as well as from mass media.

That was roughly the beginning of 2004: the press was engaged into a hot discussion on the characteristics of the upcoming solutions from NVIDIA and ATI, although no one seemed to have absolutely trustworthy information. We knew that the new processors would both work with power-frugal and high-clocked GDDR3 memory; NVIDIA’s NV40 was also certain to have 16 pixel pipelines against 8 or 12 or 16 – who knows? – pipelines in ATI’s R420. The frequencies were indefinite, too, something in a range of 500-600MHz. As usual, the truth became apparent only after we saw the real silicon.  

So, let’s try to evaluate the progress of the developers of graphics processors from our traditional point of view: are these GPUs good for us as end-users? As usually, we tend to bring you the most detailed picture of a massive amount of benchmarks, today we have 35 of them!