Performance in Third-Person 3D Shooters

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

The game features a complex geometry, so the RADEON X700 with its 6 vertex processors outperforms the XFX GeForce 6600 GDDR2 in high resolutions. The latter has only 3 such processors and clock them at the same frequency, 400MHz. Well anyway, the speed of the game never goes below 36fps even in the hardest mode.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory abounds in rather complex pixel shaders and supports Shader Model 3.0, so the RADEON X1300 PRO has a chance to show its best here. The NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GDDR2 follows closely behind, however, having a 250MHz lower core frequency but two times the number of pixel processors. The device from ATI Technologies is a little ahead of its opponent in the “eye candy” mode due to the more efficient memory controller, even though not of the RingBus design.

The extra 50MHz of GPU frequency helps the XFX GeForce 6600 GDDR2 win the “pure speed” mode and have the same speed as the RADEON X1300 PRO at the “eye candy” settings. As usual, the effect from a higher core frequency is not so obvious in higher resolutions where the amount of graphics memory plays the main role (the cards from NVIDIA and XFX have the same amount of memory).

Just like in Serious Sam 2, the numbers are purely theoretical. You have to reduce the resolution or level of detail to achieve a playable frame rate in this game on the participating graphics cards (except the GeForce 6600 GT).