GF FX 5800 (Ultra DustBuster) ***1st REVIEW*** (Guru3D.com) w/Comparisons to 9700Pro and 3DMark2003

[apoppin]

HERE!!!!!

I did a "search" am I blind . . . . am I the first?

:Q

much to my surprise nVIDIA chose to optimize Detonator drivers for 3D Mark 03 to get the score up and actually delivers these 42.68 drivers along with the press-package I received. That by itself validates the fact that nVIDIA recognized 3D Mark 03 as common used and accepted benchmark. If nVIDIA would not decided to optimize the drivers and would not have delivered them to the press then this site would not have used the benchmark. However now we will. So there are two things in my mind regarding 3DMark 03:


Right now there is no other way to benchmark DX9 performance .. and you need a DX9 benchmark to review DX9 hardware.
All synthetic benchmarks are liable to be manipulated with drivers optimised for the benchmark ...

24 MORE pages . . . read on.

EDIT: Here's the FiringSquad Preview:

 

[apoppin]

It doesn't get interesting till about pafe 13 . . . he is benchmarking with an Athlon XP 1800+ . . .

and so far I WANT A RADEON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[John]

What a review!!!

This is highly recommended.

 

[FishTankX]

That's not exactly fair. No videocard benchmark is a videocard benchmark unless it is completly free of the limitations of the CPU.

 

[Eug]

Doom III (Ouch! No AA or AF.)

800x600
1024x768
1280x1024
1600x1200

Radeon 9700 Pro
48
34
23
17

GeForce FX 5800 Pro
51
37
25
18

His computer is MUCH TOO SLOW though.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: John
What a review!!!

This is highly recommended.

You read it already? :Q . . . I am only on page 20:
3DMark 03
1024x768

Raeon 9500 Pro
2329

Radeon 9700 Pro
4391

GeForce FX 5800 Pro
4829

In 3DMark2001, the 9700Pro beats the FX . . .

.. NVIDIA told us to that have optimized this driver in order to show you how easy it is to get a nice score. Here's what they had to say about Detonator driver 42.68:

We did that driver to show how easy it is to optimise for the benchmark and how the scores should not be taken at face value - I know the good sites, including yourself, understand the balance needed between synthetic and real world benchmarks, but a lot of sites take that benchmark to be the final word on GPU performance and our point is that it should only, if at all, be used as a background test and not a measure of actual game performance or for that matter DX9, given it's shortcomings in using true DX9 shaders.

 

[GTaudiophile]

However when a 3D application like a game starts then the noise begins and since gaming is the sole reason you buy this product for I have to state that NVIDIA made a bad call here, I honestly don't like it at all. To get a mental picture let's go back to Splinter Cell again shall we, you need to hear the environment sounds of the game .. how's that going to happen with a cooling fan making noise louder than the environmental sounds of the game?

 

[Eug]

Doom III 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200
Athlon XP 1800+ 36 25 18
Athlon XP 2000+ 35 25 18
Pentium 4 2.4 35 25 18
Pentium 4 2.6 36 25 18

It seems Doom III is incredibly limited by the video card. Hopefully when it's released the optimizations will be major.

 

[Genx87]

Try Firing squad. I think they use an XP2600+.

Same story though. The FX has miraculously come from the dead and now beats the 9700 Pro pretty much hands down. At Firing squad it is 45 FPS faster in Quake III @ 1600X1200X32 and 39 FPS faster in UT2003 at the same rez. Its anistrophic performance is either faster or within a few % points of the 9700 Pro and that is with 1st revision drivers. I just read a review yesterday that showed the GF4 from its release drivers to the current 41.09 drivers. Anistrophic + AA went up in performance anywhere from 40-60% without any loss in quality.

So take these initial Anistrophic and AA numbers and my guess is 40-60% faster by the time the 3rd revision of drivers comes out.

Overall the FX has made a reversal since the initial reviews a month or so ago.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Eug


His computer is MUCH TOO SLOW though.

CPU Scaling
Of course it makes sense to take a good look at the influence of raw processor power versus the graphics card is also. The following benchmarks will demonstrate that the GeForce FX is quite capable handling high-framerates at a mid-range system. It certainly loves a faster CPU though.

So we took an Athlon 1800+, 2000+, Pentium 4 2.4 GHz and 2.7 GHz and then compared the results again. In about a week or two i should receive an Athlon XP 3000+ (Barton) from AMD, the results with that CPU wil be included later. All systems are running with 512 MB Memory at 333 MHz, similar drivers builds , similar OS, and similar BIOS settings. Let's take a look:

You gotta LOOK at the chart.




AND DoomIII is ALPHA - no GPU will run it well as it is NOT optimized.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Try Firing squad. I think they use an XP2600+.

Same story though. The FX has miraculously come from the dead and now beats the 9700 Pro pretty much hands down. At Firing squad it is 45 FPS faster in Quake III @ 1600X1200X32 and 39 FPS faster in UT2003 at the same rez. Its anistrophic performance is either faster or within a few % points of the 9700 Pro and that is with 1st revision drivers. I just read a review yesterday that showed the GF4 from its release drivers to the current 41.09 drivers. Anistrophic + AA went up in performance anywhere from 40-60% without any loss in quality.

So take these initial Anistrophic and AA numbers and my guess is 40-60% by the time the 3rd revision of drivers comes out.

Overall the FX has made a reversal since the initial reviews a month or so ago.

Makes no difference. The NV30 will once again be a moot point in 24 hours or so

 

[FishTankX]

I guess now we're back to the 8500/Ti500 situation, albiet slightly different. The 9700 pro is a solid, cheaper card that provides nearly the same perforomance. So it's just anothehr choice. Frankly, I want to save my ears so I'll pick up a 9700 pro when it falls to around 150$.

 

[Genx87]

Depends. Will Nvidia release a driver revision above and beyond this?

Wouldnt be the first time Nvidia has boosted performance via drivers. I mean in just a month they have gone from joke to the real deal.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Try Firing squad. I think they use an XP2600+.

Same story though. The FX has miraculously come from the dead and now beats the 9700 Pro pretty much hands down. At Firing squad it is 45 FPS faster in Quake III @ 1600X1200X32 and 39 FPS faster in UT2003 at the same rez. Its anistrophic performance is either faster or within a few % points of the 9700 Pro and that is with 1st revision drivers. I just read a review yesterday that showed the GF4 from its release drivers to the current 41.09 drivers. Anistrophic + AA went up in performance anywhere from 40-60% without any loss in quality.

So take these initial Anistrophic and AA numbers and my guess is 40-60% by the time the 3rd revision of drivers comes out.

Overall the FX has made a reversal since the initial reviews a month or so ago.

A reversal . . . WHAT REVIEWS ARE YOU READING?

The Conclusion:

My feelings towards it are bit dualistic. On the one hand we have this awesome new product that really has top notch performance and feature wise is the new king, yet barely. Didn't we all expect it to be a huge Radeon 9700 Pro killer which should have been released a couple of months ago ? Unfortunately it is only slightly faster think in lines of 10 to 20% here and there and when it comes to Anisotropic Filtering and Anti Aliasing .. well Radeon 9700 Pro is just handling that smarter and thus is a tad faster. Does that make the FX a bad graphics card then ? By all means no .. don't even take that word in your mouth, GeForce FX is a new chipset, a new generation graphics card that has been build for upcoming DirectX9 games and it rocks in a lot of ways.

Current games will run absolutely fabulous on it. I mean I just played Splinter Cell with 4x AA and 8x AF enabled while doing framerates that where just amazing, it definitely has the raw power which can handle any game to date. This new generation GeForce FX silicon shows a lot of potential and compared to it's little sister the GeForce4 this new generation is a huge leap forward. In fact in some higher resolutions with quality settings enabled even 50 to 100%

So you see .. there are plenty of good reasons to buy the GeForce FX 5800 Ultra, unfortunately there are also some reasons not that shabby. First of all: the price tag might be something you don't like, I don't like it either but this product was made for the high-end user, the enthusiast and well .. they got to pay if they want to play, it always has been that way and will remain that way also. However 399 is the price an Ultra 5800 FX will cost you, yet Radeon 9700 Pro with nearly the same performance will prolly cost you something in the 300 USD range. This will make the GeForce FX 5800 Ultra a product that is hard to sell, even the biggest nvidiot will scratch behind the back of his/her head while deciding what card he'll buy. Furthermore the fact that we yet have to see the first DirectX 9 game is a bit frustrating and last but not least the noise that FlowFX brings into your living room. Let's talk a little about the cooling that this GeForce FX 5800 Ultra card is equipped with. There's no way denying it, it's loud .. If you walk to the next room and leave the door open you will be able to hear FlowFX running. Fortunately NVIDIA did something clever, if you are in desktop (2D) mode the FlowFX is pretty much soundless, you will not hear it as it rotates much slower. However when a 3D application like a game starts then the noise begins and since gaming is the sole reason you buy this product for I have to state that NVIDIA made a bad call here, I honestly don't like it at all. To get a mental picture let's go back to Splinter Cell again shall we, you need to hear the environment sounds of the game .. how's that going to happen with a cooling fan making noise louder than the environmental sounds of the game?

. . .

Let's sum it up in a one-liner: excellent product, excellent feature set, really expensive, performance wise fastest thing available right now, the noise is irritating .. choose a non FlowFX version or opt the heatpipe solution from the people at Thermaltake if that is a problem for you.

It's still DEAD.

 

[Genx87]

Look at the charts not the fanboy conclusions.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Boy - not impressive at all. Once you buy the Thermaltake cooling solution (which should have been standard), you have spent $450 on a card that is neck-and-neck with the sub-$300 9700 Pro. Thanks but no thanks.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Look at the charts not the fanboy conclusions.

LOOK at the charts! The FX is only very slightly faster than the 9700Pro and when you kick in AA and AF, the 9700 is better. Which charts were you specifically referring to ?

 

[Genx87]

FX Quake III scores

 

[McCarthy]

Originally posted by: FishTankX
That's not exactly fair. No videocard benchmark is a videocard benchmark unless it is completly free of the limitations of the CPU.

Sure it is. Can go look at other sites that compare using a 2600+, or a 3.06ghz, and then combine the three to figure out which is the best combo for you. After all a videocard doesn't operate on it's own, it's a combination. And I'd bet a lot of people, yes, even some buying R9700's and FX's, don't have the very fastest CPU available.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Doom 3 is still on the alpha release so ATI could even end up having a higher performance if ATI works closely with id software.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Genx87
FX Quake III scores

Lets look at the rest of them (Quake fanboi):

Code creatures: FX wins by a few FPS (2-4)

3DMark2003: FX is optimized for and wins.

3DMark2001: 9700Pro wins

QIII: FX wins
AF/AA: 9700 wins

Serious Sam SE: FX wins
AF/AA 9700Pro wins at higher res

RtCW: unclear FX win
AF/AA: unclear 9700Pro win

Doom III: Fx wins 1-3 FPS over 9700Pr
AA/AF FX wins (ties at highest res)

Aquamark: 9700Pro wins (except at highest res)
AA/AF: FX wins

UT2003: 9700Pro wins (except at highest res)
AA/AF: 9700Pro wins

Looks pretty EVENLY split. By DEFAULT, the "old" 9700Pro (price/performance/quietness) WINS.

 

[Genx87]

I think ID is going with a standard rendering path. Especially since it sounds like the R300 doesnt have a custom rendering path.

But that Alpha release is just that. Something that works. I would imagine by the time the actual games comes to fruit a GF4 should run it comfortably at 1024X768. The game afterall is designed around a GF3.

 

[Spicedaddy]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Look at the charts not the fanboy conclusions.

5 to 8% better performance in most games for 33% price difference is a big revolution to you? It only wins the UT2003 flyby benchmarks at FS by a big margin when it's using sh!tass quality mode (aka Agressive mode).

Nobody cares about Q3 benchmarks with no AA or Aniso anymore... And when you crank up the AA and AF, we're back to the 5% difference, with the 9700 even beating it sometimes.


So yeah, bring on R350.

 

[apoppin]

FiringSquad had the SAME conclusion:

From a pure performance perspective, GeForce FX 5800 Ultra is not the performance champion we were lead to believe it would be back in November. Sure, GeForce FX 5800 Ultra wins its fair share of benchmarks (especially in non-AA situations), but for the most part ATI?s RADEON 9700 PRO was able to keep up with, our outperform it once the visuals were really cranked up a few notches . . .

Complicating matters is the heat output of the card and noise from the FX Flow cooling unit, both of these issues are turnoffs to many gamers. In addition, the scalable clock frequency ?feature? can sometimes underclock your GeForce FX 5800 Ultra card right in the middle of gaming. We had to repeat multiple runs of Serious Sam and Quake 3 running with 4xAA/8xAniso enabled to get our final numbers, in some cases the margin between the scores was as high as 30%!

"FX beats the Radeon9700Pro" . . . LOL and the 9800Pro is waiting to demolish the FX Ultra Dustbuster. . .

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: Spicedaddy
So yeah, bring on R350.

Everyone is saying tomorrow.

BTW, ATi just demoed M10 (Radeon 9600 Mobility) on TechTV.