3D Performance
Rather than run the full gamut of benchmarks, since it's just a stock X850 XT in terms of clocks, I've taken the easy way out for this article and only run three game tests plus a fillrate test, to guage performance. It's the same as the X850 XT reference hardware I reviewed recently, so I won't waste time repeating myself. I'd rather talk some more about the cooler, instead.Doom 3
iD's latest engine showcase enjoys the double-rate Z ops, on NVIDIA's GPU, more than the architecture on which R480 is built. Putting that common knowledge aside, GeCube's X850 XT has no problem standing toe-to-toe with the slightly-faster-but-who-really-cares-since-the-XT-is-the-same-thing X850 XT Platinum Edition.
Half-Life 2
Changing title to the poster child of the ATI Generation, both ATI SKUs outpace the NV40 Ultra without issue when we're not CPU limited. Excellent stuff, with the GeCube again matching anything ATI's bulky, noisy reference board can do.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
I've recently started playing this a little, after my friend Ben ruined his exam revision with it recently. It enjoys the performance of both ATI and NVIDIA's fastest single GPU products almost equally. While the X850 XT PE shows more tangible benefits over the GeCube, showing what an extra slice of fillrate and 3.2GB/sec of theoretical memory bandwidth can give you at high resolution.
Fillrate
In ze feelrate graph, ze GeCube is mighty sweeft.
