Gun Metal
All of our comparison cards have the ability to run the full feature set on offer from Microsoft's DX9 API. If that's the case, let's put it to the test as we benchmark the lovely-looking Gunmetal from YETI STUDIOS. Benchmark 1 was run. Preliminary testing showed that NVIDIA cards weren't applying anisotropic filtering at any setting. With that being the case, and with the benchmark automatically applying 2x AA by default, the test was run at 1024x768 with 2x AA, 1024x768 with 4x AA, and 1600x1200 @ 4x AA.
You can quickly forget the 300FPS+ scores obtained by Quake III. Even the 9800 PRO cannot break the 30FPS barrier. As noted above, the benchmark applies 2x AA by default. In fact, the test wasn't smooth on any card. For once, the 256MB card isn't all that far behind.
Raising the antialiasing level to 4 samples does little to dampen the performance of any card. The standard 9600 PRO takes a comfortable lead over the ABIT FX 5600 Ultra.
Here, quite expectedly, is where the benchmark becomes 'sticky'. Some may question the need for accelerators that sport over 20GB/s of bandwidth and have tremendous engine power. This DX9 benchmark answers some questions in graphic detail.
