Nvidias default quality driver settings lead to bad quality. When setting AA/AF the second optimization automatically activates.
This leads to mipmapbanding on texturstages

You may test it at Serious Sam 2 and you may notice that opengl suffer in worse image quality with Nvidia default optimizations. This means all 3 opts after you ONCE set AF quality. Look at the panel.

Look at image quality. Catalyst AI Standard IS ONLY COMPARABLE with NVidia "High Quality". All standard Nvidia quality settings show flickering pixels at high frequency shaders.

What about HDR?

I don't know if the high quality settings mentioned included HDR, I shöiuld not think so. What I would like to see is an article that really goes into depth and explains the diffferencies between the different AA modes compared to the different HDR modes. Afaik it's an advantage that the X1800XL has, that it can combine all sorts of AA and HDR. Even Xbitlabs pointed out that gamers in realistic gaming situations use AA in this article
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/cpu-games2.ht l
"Why don’t we test the CPUs with the more realistic gaming settings then, when the image quality is adjusted so that the gamer could get a nice picture and at the same time enjoy acceptable fps rate ensuring comfortable experience"

I'm not critical about the article, it's an excellent piece of work, but am I the only one who think that the lack of this aspect really stands out? Or are there no games out that this is possible to test on?

And I must also point out that I'm not pro Ati, (I'm well aware of the FUD slides mentioning this), but I would like to know if it has any practical consequences: I'm planning an upgrade and I want the facts! :-)

Perhaps Half-Life 2: Lost Coast should be added to the test list, and the old UT2004 removed. After all, most recent Xbitlabs reviews of graphics cards on UT2004, even the lower-end 6600 and X1300, have shown that UT2004 has become more or less CPU-limited.

A pretty silly set of benches to comment about the new driver not bringing performance increases over Cat 5.11, since the only real difference is that the Cat 5.12's sets the amount of threads that must be used depending if you are running a multiple core/HT system... Altho you could just do it via the reg in 5.11's, its now officially threaded from install.

Also, I notice that the default tweaks:
Anisotropic mip filter optimization: Off
Anisotropic sample optimization: On

However these are optional and not shown on the control panel for the ATi cards, in future I would like to see a bench that uses the various optional optimisations that ATi provide tweakers with. These could be found using something like ATT (ATi Tray Tools)

Anyway... thats just my bit

Syris

Did I miss it? -or do you fail to mention that this monitor has DUAL dual-link DVI connections - in other words it can run TWO apple 30" cinema displays - both at 2560 x 1600 (or two of the new Dell 30" displays)...

Previously you had to spend $1300 on a Fire GL or whatever to get this. It's an important feature, and I can't believe you don't mention it anywhere - !!

"The GPU frequency of the RADEON X1800 XT 512MB, 625MHz, is unlikely to be achieved on a RADEON X1800 XL"

Oh is that so? sorry, the X1800XL works at a lower voltage compared to X1800XT

Complimenti, un articolo davvero completo ed accurato. Importante è anche la vostra valutazione delle schede infatti riconoscete la maggior velocità della 7800 gt ma allo stesso tempo consigliate la ati x1800 xl per le migliori prestazioni con i filtri attivi. Inoltre non riesco ad immaginare come possa un videogiocatore comprare delle schede del genere (a dei prezzi del genere) e poi non voler neanche attivare i filtri! Grazie per la recensione ottima. filippo