Contemporary Graphics Accelerators In 3DMark03

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Just got word that Xbitlabs.com have posted their Contemporary Graphics Accelerators in 3DMark03 editorial. They are dissecting every game sequence performance wise and comparing results using the following graphics cards:

ATI

ATI RADEON 9700 PRO 128MB ATI RADEON 9500 PRO 128MB ATI RADEON 9500 128MB ATI RADEON 9500 64MB ATI RADEON 9100 128MB ATI RADEON 9000 128MB

NVIDIA

NVIDIA GeForceFX 5800 Ultra 128MB NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4800 128MB NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4600 128MB NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4200-8x 128MB NVIDIA GeForce4 MX440-8x 64MB NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti200 128MB

February 2003, people at Futuremark, previously known as MadOnion.com (and before that ? the same as now ? Futuremark), released their 3DMark03 benchmarking package intended for measuring speed characteristics of modern PCs in 3D games. Right after its appearance, 3DMark03 provoked a lot of critical remarks from both: graphics chip makers (NVIDIA was among the most disappointed) and graphics cards reviewers. One of the main concerns was the low performance of modern graphics cards, particularly GeForce4 Ti4600 based ones, which didn?t correspond well to their pretty fast performance in present-day computer games.

Anyway, 3DMark03 is a benchmarking tool that helps to check the performance of graphics cards in next generation 3D applications. It means we can have a peep into the future and get to know beforehand the behavior of existing graphics cards in games that are going to use the latest advances in computer graphics.

Rancho*: Though the FX 5800 may outperform the 9700 Pro (funny thing it actually does now remembering the first reviews...). Would you want a 40+db cooled graphics card at a higher price than the unbeatable $299.99 US? Then again Nvidia has not officially released any DirectX 9 compliant and FX supporting drivers. But ATI on the other hand has promised performance enhancing Catalyst 03.3 drivers (between 5-10% faster) and Radeon 9800 Pro 256Mbyte is soon available for ~$550 at launch. Now are you going for the expensive performance-dustbuster, the moderate top performer, or the super-duper I have double the memory top performer? It's up to you... Contemporary Graphics Accelerators in 3DMark03