3DMark 2003
3DMark 2003, released recently to take into account some of the advanced features on offer from DirectX9, as well as DX7 and DX8, heavily punishes even this modern, powerful GPU. I'll preface the results by stating that the FX Ultra performs extremely poorly with the 43.00 drivers used for testing. There is a driver set that pushes its performance above that of the 9700 Pro, but I'm unwilling to change drivers for a specific benchmark.
See what I mean by comparatively horrid performance ?. The 9800 Pro adds over 15% to the score posted by the 9700 Pro. The overall score is the sum of four game tests, three of which are almost entirely card-intensive. Complex Pixel Shader 2.0 instructions are used to create realistic textures.
The Radeon 9800 Pro firmly asserts itself into the driving seat, helped primarily by faster core and memory clocks. The 9800 Pro is a little faster than an overclocked 9700 Pro in 3DMark 2003. The Doom3-like Battle Of Proxycon segment uses complex shadows that should be helped a little by the upgraded HyperZ III+
