Conclusion

So we have benchmarked twelve modern graphics cards in thirty-five computer games. What’s the big picture? What card is the best buy? Are they future-proof? We’ll try to answer these questions one by one.

First of all, this testing session didn’t reveal an absolute leader in the consumer 3D graphics field. ATI Technologies and NVIDIA Corporation both have wide product assortments for every category of users. NVIDIA has claims on technological superiority since its latest graphics processor NV40 features a score of exciting capabilities and technologies. However, a sophisticated and feature-rich GPU architecture doesn’t necessarily mean a success – just remember the NV3x series, which would lose in performance to ATI’s analogous products notwithstanding all its innovations. So we have no winners here, but we still have something to say about products of each price category.

Graphics Cards with a recommended price of $499

Probably the most difficult thing in this review is to find an absolute performance leader among all graphics cards widely available today. None of the fastest cards – the RADEON X800 XT and GeForce 6800 Ultra – demonstrated a breath-taking performance advantage in modern games.

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The NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra feels at its ease in low resolutions as well as when you don’t enable anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing. Besides that, NVIDIA’s new GPU outperforms its rival in older games and, however strange it seems in view of the defeat of the GeForce FX, in a number of pre-release versions of upcoming applications.

It is a paradox, but the GeForce 6800 Ultra doesn’t have much need for overclocking. It doesn’t require a frequency of over 400MHz in those games where it outruns its main rival at the nominal clock rates, but in those games where ATI’s GPU is superior, the extra megahertz cannot help the GeForce 6800 Ultra.

It is possible that the GeForce 6800 graphics cards will get some speed boost through additional optimization of the driver and applications themselves, but you may not see it right after new games come out.

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The support of Shader Model 3.0 is listed among the advantages of the GeForce 6800 Ultra. It means a slightly higher speed and new special effects. Today, support of Shader Model 3.0 is a light argument, giving just a small gain in Far Cry, but if this shader version becomes widely accepted throughout the industry, there will be ever more such games and Shader Model 3.0 will have more influence. If this scenario develops rapidly enough, the lack of support of this standard may become a serious disadvantage of the RADEON X800 XT/Pro in comparison to the GeForce 6800 Ultra.

The ATI RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition develops an excellent speed across the entire spectrum of gaming applications, but loses to the GeForce 6800 Ultra in a number of games. With enabled full-screen anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering this chip usually confirms its superiority. If you invest into a RADEON X800 XT, you can rest assured that the speed of games actively using DirectX 9 shaders will be stably high, irrespective of ATI programmers’ efforts to optimize the drivers.

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Besides that, the RADEON X800 XT boasts such complementary advantages as small size, low noise level, only one power connector, and only one slot occupied – all in contrast to NVIDIA’s flagship product.

Note also that the RADEON X800 XT doesn’t require a super-high-quality power-supply unit like the competitor does, but if you’re going to purchase this powerful graphics accelerator, keep it in mind that it should be accompanied with much RAM and a powerful central processor to realize its full potential – these things by themselves may call for a new and better and more powerful PSU.

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The RADEON X800 XT has its own drawbacks, too. Its reference cooling system might be more efficient, and it doesn’t support Shader Model 3.0. The latter thing may affect its performance in upcoming games that use this shader version. The first game to use this innovation was the 3D shooter Far Cry (see our review).

We think that you can word your own demands to $499 graphics cards and select a product that suits your particular needs – just examine the diagrams for the best results in your favorite games.