Hi guys, haven´t posted in a while, but all those new reviews have
ignited my lust for benchmarks again!
After having read most of the available reviews on the new cards,
it was quite irritating to read THG to see that they again prove to be
doing things, should we say "different".
While there were notable good exceptions, there are some points that
IMO, need to be explained. Case in point:
- why o why do the benchmark @60Hz? If V-synch is not disabled in the game/drivers, this is limiting the framerate severely and would explain why the numbers were very low for a 2700XP system.
- am I the only one that got upset when they used "application" preference setting AS for the GF FX and then wondered why there was no difference to 8*? What part of "application preference" don´t they understand. This setting is available in the ATI settings as well but here it a seperate checkbox (as it should be). This is only logical since it disables the drivers anisotropic filtering in favor of the ingame engine. In games like Unreal II, this leads to inferior performance AND quality. how you can compare a non-driver mode to a driver mode is beyond me.
- Most reviewers have noticed that Ati´s "performance" setting is comparable to nvidia´s quality one. Anand and others adjusted accordigly. But Lars decided to compare the "balanced" setting to Ati´s "quality". And that after stating that :
"Since the two companies use different optimisations, a direct apples-to-apples comparison is difficult. The quality tests at the beginning of the article showed that visually, ATi's chips seem to have an edge on the competition."
while in the first visual comparison he reckons:
"At default settings, NVIDIA's GeForce FX produces a visibly crisper image than the Radeon 9700 PRO. With 8x anisotropic filtering enabled, the differences between the cards are minimal, though. Increasing the filtering level to 16x does not visibly improve image quality, however."
Note that:
"In this comparison we'll take a closer look at the race track (the asphalt). Both cards were tested using maximum quality settings (FX: application; R9700 PRO: quality)."
since the game obviously uses it´s own APPLICATION anisotopic filtering which seems like using a 2x or 4x method.
- THG posted 3500 marks for the 2003 3dmark with a 2700XP/9500pro. I know a 1,5Ghz P IV system with the same card scoring 3900. hmm maybe it´s the 60Hz....
In any case, THG review is very inconsistent and I want to know what u guys think about it
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