ATI Radeon "X850 XT" for the Mac--How Fast Is It?
Several things have happenend in the past three weeks that have made our comparo somewhat obsolete. First, ATI came out with a new firmware update (A109) that fixed our problem with getting full screen output at resolutions less than the native 2560x1600 of the 30" Cinema Display. Second, Apple discontinued the Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL and replaced it with the slower 6800 GT model. Third, Apple began shipping the ATI Radeon X850 XT, a slightly faster card than the X800 XT, as a CTO option.
According to Bare Feats, the only performance-related differences between the Mac versions of the ATI Radeon X800 XT and X850 XT are the GPU clock speed (500MHz instead of 475) and the memory clock speed (550MHz instead of 500). ATI does not list any specs for the Mac version of the X850 XT. If these are the only performance-related differences (ATI's comparison of the Windows versions seems to confirm this), then we can use ATIccelerator II 1.0.5a to increase the GPU and memory clock speeds of our X800 XT to those of the X850 XT to simulate its performance. With this assumption, we updated the firmware of our X800 XT to A109, clocked it to equal the X850 XT's specs and re-ran our graphics speed tests.
3D Games
First, we ran benchmarks on four popular 3D games: the venerable Quake III Arena, Call of Duty, Halo and the most recent "system-buster" DOOM 3. Our 30" Cinema Display has a native resolution of 2560x1600 pixels and Halo is the only game that supports it. We normally play full screen at a resolution of 1024x768 to allow enabling most eye candy and still get a frame rate of 60 or better. The way we test using the 3D games and their settings are listed in our SpeedFAQ. For this shootout we retained all settings and simply increased the resolution to stress the cards' performance.
Here are the results using our dual 2.5GHz Power Mac G5 with 1.5GB RAM running Mac OS X 10.4.1:
| Game/- Card |
Resolution (Pixels)
|
|||
|
1024x768
|
1600x1200
|
2048x1536
|
2560x1600
|
|
| Quake III Arena | ||||
| -"ATI X850 XT" |
415
|
382
|
224
|
n/a
|
| - ATI X800 XT |
400
|
365
|
204
|
n/a
|
| - NV 6800 Ultra |
401
|
381
|
358
|
n/a
|
| Call of Duty | ||||
| -"ATI X850 XT" |
86
|
85
|
78
|
n/a
|
| - ATI X800 XT |
86
|
85
|
76
|
n/a
|
| - NV 6800 Ultra |
86
|
84
|
81
|
n/a
|
| Halo | ||||
| -"ATI X850 XT" |
75
|
51
|
37
|
28
|
| - ATI X800 XT |
74
|
50
|
36
|
26
|
| - NV 6800 Ultra |
67
|
38
|
26
|
20
|
| DOOM 3 | ||||
| -"ATI X850 XT" |
54
|
42
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
| - ATI X800 XT |
53
|
39
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
| - NV 6800 Ultra |
61
|
53
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
**Blue is better in each card comparison within the same resolution.
n/a means that the particular resolution is "not available" for that game.
For all 3D games except Halo, the Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL was equal to or better than the simulated ATI X850 XT, especially at the higher resolutions supported by the games. The X850 XT gained several frames per second over the X800 XT in all games, especially Quake II Arena. ATI is still the Halo champ by a wider margin and the Nvidia is still the Doom 3 champ but by a lesser margin.
Other Graphics Card Benchmarks
Finally, we ran our other benchmarks that relate to graphics performance. We also ran a benchmark not usually associated with graphics performance, the Startup time, when we noticed a significant difference during use and testing of other benchmarks They are described in our SpeedFAQ. Here are the results, either as a score where higher is better or as time in seconds where lower is better:
| Test*** |
Card
|
||
|
"ATI X850 XT"
|
ATI X800 XT
|
NV 6800 Ultra
|
|
| Cinebench 2003 Rendering |
648
|
639
|
646
|
| Cinebench 2003 OpenGL HW |
1780
|
1844
|
1801
|
| Let1kWindowsBloom |
8
|
8
|
7
|
| Xbench Quartz Graphics |
472
|
471
|
521
|
| Xbench OpenGL Graphics |
296
|
297
|
234
|
| Xbench User Interface |
523
|
514
|
517
|
| Scroll 142p File (sec) |
14
|
14
|
12
|
| Startup (sec) |
45
|
53
|
37
|
**Quartz 2D Extreme Enabled
***Blue is better in each card comparison
The Cinebench 2003 tests are still a wash given the variability between runs. The Xbench scores are also a wash except for the OpenGL test in which ATI is still much faster. Nvidia is still faster at Let1KWindowsBloom, scrolling the graphics-laden file and in Startup, although either the new firmware or the faster clock speeds allowed ATI to catch up a bit in startup time.
If Apple still offered the Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL, we would still very slightly give it the overall speed nod. But it has been discontinued by Apple in favor of the slower 6800 GT. Unless you have two 30" monitors, the ATI Radeon X850 XT now appears to be the better choice, especially if you are a Halo fan or want to save a PCI slot. The release of firmware A109 for the ATI Radeon X800 XT also fixed the full screen issue with the 30" Cinema Display.
But what about the near future? Will Apple release a graphics card based on the newest Nvidia 7800 GPU? We certainly hope so. [Bill Fox]
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