UT2003, X²
UT2003
While NV40's 8X mode rears its ugly head again, the performance parity seen with X800 XT in previous tests is shattered as the X800 XT is usefully quicker at 1024x768 with 4AA and 8AF. It's 2X as fast as 9800XT at every mode where we aren't CPU limited.
X²
X800 XT's nearly 2X as fast as 9800 XT, 6800 Ultra's 8X mode making it appear rather silly in this company, despite it being more than competent when you don't use it.
Game Test Summary
The game tests have highlighted a couple of important points. Firstly, X800 XT is generally 2X the speed of 9800 XT when the CPU doesn't have an influence on things. Be under no illusions, ATI and NVIDIA's new GPU architectures are somewhat of a quantum leap in performance over the previous generation.Secondly ATI, while not adding any new discrete AA modes to R420, haven't saddled it with a performance killing mode either, instead retaining the high performance, high quality modes that we've come to love since R3x0 appeared some two years ago.
Those high quality modes, 6X especially, become very usable at almost all resolutions in the vast majority of current game titles, with only a couple of GPU-beating titles conspiring against its use. It's possibly what has surprised me the most during X800 XT testing, that 6X AA is a mode you can enable freely and generally forget about any performance consequences whatsoever. 9800 XT can do that to some extent, but X800 XT sets that mode free.
