101 3D Graphics Cards Tested

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Posted by Zonk on Friday October 15, 2004 @03:00AM from the comparison-shopping-for-the-anal-retentive dept.

Phantom69 writes "Ixbt Labs have spent a month testing 101 graphics cards in 14 different games. They used one reference system, and tested at two different resolutions (800x600 and 1024x768). The cards cover virtually all the major manufacturers ATi, nVidia, 3dfx, Matrox, PowerVR and S3 from 1999-2004."

35 comments

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

nothing beats by sakura+the+mc · 2004-10-15 03:02 · Score: 1, Funny

my dual voodoo2 SLI setup
OMG by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-15 03:05 · Score: 0, Redundant

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!
1. Re:OMG by bairy · 2004-10-15 03:12 · Score: 1
  
  and in other news, all the processing power from all the combined graphics cards was still not quite enough to think up some new (and hopefully funny for a change) slashdot jokes.
  
  --
  
  Get paid to search..It's geniune and
While we're on tired old /. jokes... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-15 03:15 · Score: 1, Funny

I am, and it still couldn't run Doom 3!
Irony in action by WormholeFiend · 2004-10-15 03:17 · Score: 4, Interesting

Geforce beats Radeon in every game except Unreal Tournament, a game that opens with an Nvidia splash screen that says "the way it's meant to be played".
1. Re:Irony in action by gl4ss · 2004-10-15 03:21 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  .. the splash screens are just marketing.
  
  tribes vengeance has ati's splash screen(tribes vengeance is based around the ut engine)..
  
  --
  world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
2. Re:Irony in action by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-15 03:38 · Score: 0
  
  That's why it's irony and not fraud.
3. Re:Irony in action by Zardoz44 · 2004-10-15 04:00 · Score: 1
  
  Farcry has ATI as the dominating card, at least at the highest level. I didn't look at all the results, just a couple.
4. Re:Irony in action by SkyWalk423 · 2004-10-15 04:40 · Score: 2, Insightful
  Geforce beats Radeon in every game...
  
  There are still people that dedicate fanboy time, thought, and effort to which company makes the faster 3D accelerators?? Didn't that die when 3DFX went under???
  They one-up each other every three months, people. The pattern is well documented now. Move on.
5. Re:Irony in action by Carnildo · 2004-10-15 10:01 · Score: 1
  
  Not always. ATI missed a round with the 8x00 series, and Nvidia dropped the ball with the FX series.
  
  --
  "They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
6. Re:Irony in action by space_jake · 2004-10-17 02:31 · Score: 0
  
  Well if you remember correctly, Nvidia bought 3DFX out so that explains their SLI setup on the new 6200 PCI-e cards, and their excessive eneed to have all games display their logo on the box and startup.
Similar article at Tom's by vasqzr · 2004-10-15 03:26 · Score: 2, Informative

Tom's VGA Charts are pretty similar.
Seriously by fr0dicus · 2004-10-15 03:31 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm all for freedom of choice but isn't the sheer number here overwhelming evidence of just how pointless the cycle method of graphics hardware has become? I'm continually amazed at just how much people are willing to blow time after time on a consumer component.
1. Re:Seriously by FortKnox · 2004-10-15 04:27 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  The best review he did a year or two ago was which card gave you the best bang for your buck (it was something like fps/$). The answer was the Radeon 9600XT, which is the card I bought. Wasn't the best, wasn't the fanciest, but it was a lot cheaper than the other cards, and I don't notice the difference between 60fps and 75fps.
  
  --
  Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Art on the cooling plates by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-15 03:44 · Score: 2, Funny

It's about time they started putting hot anime chicks on the video cards! It makes them go faster!

http://www.ixbt.com/video2/images/over2k4/x800xt .j pg
1. Re:Art on the cooling plates by drinkypoo · 2004-10-15 13:24 · Score: 1
  
  Note that they also painted it go-faster red. They really pulled out all the stops on that one.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The ovious by djsmiley · 2004-10-15 03:44 · Score: 1

There is no such thing as a 2D card?

Unless your imagining it!

--
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
This was interesting information. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-15 03:55 · Score: 0

Generally you only see the top Genre of cards being displayed. And maybe "last years" model. In a comparison benchmark.

It is really neat to see several years/makes of cards.

The curve on the graph quickly picked up in the last 6 months worth of graphic card releases. To me this indicates there have been some serious breakthroughs in graphic technology. Hopefully the trend stays steady for the next 4 years.
1. Re:This was interesting information. by Wtcher · 2004-10-15 20:08 · Score: 1
  
  Definately. It's sometimes difficult finding a comparison of old to new so upgrading becomes a bit of a guessing game at times. My other complaint is that review sites tend to concentrate on high-performance cards while most of the world will buy up mid-range accelerators. Large charts like this also help differentiate between Radeon Pro platinum turbo edition, and Radeon XT super kumquat edition... I swear, it's starting to sound like Street Fighter: Video Card Wars.
  
  --
  ----- Wtcher Dragon, UDIC
/.ed or what? by KDR_11k · 2004-10-15 04:57 · Score: 1

All links give me a short paragraph in russian and no graphs, does that mean it's slashdotted?

I wanted to see how the GF6800/128MB compares to the 6800GT or Ultra and see if I'm really missing out on a big chunk of performance.

--
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
1. Re:/.ed or what? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-15 08:31 · Score: 0
  
  No, it means you don't have (or have wisely disabled) Flash. Because, as we all know, you can't possibly display a bar graph without using Flash.
  
  It's just a cheap gambit to make you look at ads. Anyone who uses Flash to display a bar graph should be shot.
Highlight by Mike+Hawk · 2004-10-15 05:23 · Score: 2, Interesting

The GeForce 3 Ti500 destroys all other cards at the Quake3 800x600 and RtCW 800x600. A difference between 1st and 2nd of >5fps. We need a whiskey tango foxtrot on that one.
1. Re:Highlight by ppz003 · 2004-10-15 06:52 · Score: 1
  
  Also, my radeon 8500 edges out the GeForce 6800 Ultra. I guess I don't need to upgrade for a while... :-)
2. Re:Highlight by gmhowell · 2004-10-15 07:22 · Score: 1
  
  The GF3Ti500 did kick ass when it came out. Lots of people didn't do their homework and bought GF4MX cards that were much suckier. But to do that well? Perhaps the games were written with some GF3 specifics in mind?
  
  --
  Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
3. Re:Highlight by Mike+Hawk · 2004-10-15 08:14 · Score: 1
  
  Well the Q3 point release 1.17 came out around 9/2000 and the GeForce 3 appears to have shipped on around 10/2001. Maybe it was the other way and the GeForce 3 was optimized for Q3? But it didn't come out so impressively in CoD. Just a strange anomoly I guess, but also a testament to the card.
The clear winner seems to be... by Akki · 2004-10-15 07:01 · Score: 2, Informative

the GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB, with the best price/performance going to the 6800 128MB. The 128MB version is $150 less than the 256 Ultra and only did significantly worse in one category of one game - Farcry 1024x768 with 2.0 shaders.
3dmark 05 by bairy · 2004-10-15 07:56 · Score: 2

They shoulda run 3dmark 05 on these cards you know. Woulda been funny to see them smoking.

--

Get paid to search..It's geniune and
But what about 2D? by julie-h · 2004-10-15 08:56 · Score: 1

As an all desktop Linux user, I don't need the 3D powers.

So does anyone know the best 2D choice for desktop Linux users?
1. Re:But what about 2D? by Carnildo · 2004-10-15 10:04 · Score: 1
  
  IIRC, the Matrox cards have the best 2D quality. I don't know how the speed or Linux support is.
  
  --
  "They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
2. Re:But what about 2D? by drinkypoo · 2004-10-15 13:21 · Score: 1
  
  Any 2D card with enough ram will be essentially interchangable with the exception of supported modes and RAMDAC quality. Matrox wins both of these categories hands down. Matrox cards also have such lovely features as the ability to drive sync-on-green monitors, and by matrox cards I mean just about everything since the millenium. Matrox's RAMDACs are second-to-none, and virtually eliminate the "bounce" effect in a rapidly-shifting waveform by controlling voltage to an additional extent beyond what a RAMDAC normally does, which results in a dramatically sharper display if your monitor can handle it. If you get a nice trinitron or something, it should be fantastic. I have an 8MB Matrox Millenium II around here somewhere, PCI, that I use when I need a 2D card for something I'll be sitting at regularly. (I have a stockpile of old diamondmm S3 cards for servers.)
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
3. Re:But what about 2D? by Ford+Prefect · 2004-10-18 03:51 · Score: 1
  
  I have an 8MB Matrox Millenium II around here somewhere, PCI, that I use when I need a 2D card for something I'll be sitting at regularly.
  
  I've got a pile of 4MB PCI Matrox Millennia - they're absolutely brilliant for when I want to add another monitor to a machine. Great 2D cards, and extremely well supported in Linux, - my only real complaint is that 4MB isn't quite enough to do 1280x960x32bpp. Still, they were really cheap. :-)
  
  --
  Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Testing configuration by sabit666 · 2004-10-15 16:45 · Score: 1

These benchmark shootouts always represent performance in very high-end systems, not very useful for average system that most people use.
playing/blocking flash... by Destoo · 2004-10-16 13:17 · Score: 1

Actually, get flashblock from this site.

It'll turn all the flash boxes into white boxes with an "F" in the middle that acts as a play button, so if it smells like an ad, you can ignore it and if you think it's valid content, click to play it.

Works pretty well. It says up to 0.8 on the site, but the author made a new version that works on 1.0pr

--
Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
DOOM III by IntergalacticWalrus · 2004-10-17 06:42 · Score: 1

The D3 benchmarks are pretty fucked up, as we can see the pre-FX nvidia cards perform slightly better than normal due to the less featureful but more optimized rendering paths. And the FX series kind of suffer because they use the generic "ARB2" rendering path, but don't really have the guts to handle it well.