X-bit labs

From Extreme to Mainstream: Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT from Leadtek (page 14)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin , Yaroslav Lyssenko

[ 12/03/2007 | 03:09 PM ]

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

The frame rate is fixed at 30fps in this game as this is the rate at which the physical model is being updated at the server. Thus, this 30fps speed is the required minimum for playing the game.

The Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT with the reference frequencies is slower than the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB at high resolutions in this game. As we know, Quake Wars is a rather simple game graphically, but it does employ huge-resolution textures (for details see our article called Unreal Battlefield: Enemy Territory Quake Wars Performance Preview). That’s why the memory bandwidth is a serious factor especially when FSAA is turned on. Indeed, the overclocked GeForce 8800 GT offered by Leadtek matches the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB in this parameter and the two cards have identical results from the resolution of 1600x1200. The new card is unrivalled at the lower resolutions.

F.E.A.R. Extraction Point

Like Battlefield 2142, this game does not support resolutions of 16:10 format. So, we use 1920x1400 (4:3 format) instead of 1920x1200 in this test.

The Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT is about 5% slower than the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT in terms of average performance but has a twice higher minimum of speed. ATI’s solution loses its ground at the higher resolutions notwithstanding its 512-bit memory interface whereas the Nvidia ensures a comfortable speed even at 1920x1440. The overclocked version from Leadtek is 3-5% ahead of the reference card.