HEXUS.bang4buck and overclocking
HEXUS.bang4buck
In a rough-and-ready assessment of the cards' bang per buck, we've aggregated the average 1920x1200 4xAA 8xAF framerates for the three games, normalised them*, and listed the cards' price. There are more provisos than I care to shake a stick at. We could have chosen three different games, the cards' prices could have been derived from other sources and pricing is such that it can fluctuate daily. However, to reiterate, the graph below highlights a metric that should only be used as a yardstick for evaluating comparative performance with price factored in. Other architectural benefits are not covered, obviously.| Graphics cards | ASUS EAH2900XT 512MiB | AMD Radeon X1950 XTX 512MiB | ASUS EN8800ULTRA 768MiB | GeForce 8800 GTX 768MiB | ASUS EN8800GTS 640MiB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actual aggregate marks at 1920x1200 4xAA 8x(16x)AF | 219.9 | 232.12 | 366.18 | 329.85 | 238.63 |
| Aggregate marks, normalised**, at 1920x1200 | 199.37 | 206.06 | 273.08 | 254.92 | 209.31 | Current pricing | £249 | £220 | £420 | £340 | £259 |
| HEXUS.bang4buck score | 0.8 | 0.94 | 0.65 | 0.75 | 0.81 |
| Acceptable framerate (60FPS av.) at 1920x1200 4xAA 8/16xAF | No (FC) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Now, the HEXUS.bang4buck divides the normalised aggregate framerate by current price.
Looking at it from a value proposition, then, the ASUS EAH2900XT's relatively poor performance is more than offset by an attractive street price of around £250. You receive more performance from the EN8800ULTRA, clearly, but, on balance, not 70 per cent more, which is the financial gap between the two. That's precisely why its HEXUS.bang4buck metric is lower, at .65.
We note that the observed parity between the GeForce 8800 GTS 640 and Radeon HD 2900 XT extends to the bang4buck graph, as well.
Overclocking
We managed to push the ASUS EAH2900XT up from its default 743/1656 clocks to 843/1800. In particular, that's a decent increase in the shading power. The 612/2160MHz-clocked ASUS EN8800ULTRA's core fared less well, rising to 643MHz. The GDDR3 memory, however, proved to be excellent, topping out at an effective 2416MHz.
We re-ran Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory at 1920x1200 0xAA 8xAF and HDR, to see what effect the increased clocks made to performance.
The EAH2900XT shows the greatest percentage increase but it's not enough for it to draw level with a stock-clocked 'Ultra.
