Although x1800xt has been on the market for roughly 14 months now, its price is still ridiculously high. With the arrival of R6xx chips in the second quarter of 2007, the price of x1K series will drop for sure, but how much can you lower such high price?
Let us remind you, Radeon x1800xt with its 512MB GDDR3 memory works at high 1500MHz and core that works at 625MHz. The card generates a lot of heat. To cool off this monster, designers have installed huge copper cooler with its turbine shaped body that tries to blow all of the hot air into the back side of the card. The card itself due to its size, takes at least 2 slots. We say at least two slots because with the heat that is being released from the fan, you do not want anything to occupy space around the card.
The noise that the cooler makes is not that big of an issue, but when the automatic regulation increases speed due to higher temperature you will definitely be able to tell the difference.
Unfortunately at test time we did not had NVIDIA-s 7800 or 7900 cards available to do head to head test so we are forced to use tables to show different values and results that we scored with x1800xt. We used Call of Duty 2 and Battlefield 2 multiplayer and 3dMark05 and 3dMark06 benchmark tools.
Maybe some of you will find odd that we use the two mentioned games, but believe me playing these two games with 30 or more other players and with big number of movable objects, represents a real torture to any system.
Benchmarketing:
System we used:
CPU: Intel CoreDuo E6400
Motherboard: Abit AW9D i975x
Memory: 2 x 512MB Corsair ValueSelect PC667
Power supply unit: Akasa Powerplus 650W
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm/120gb
OS: Windows XP SP2 / DirectX 9.0c / Catalyst 6.12
Call of Duty 2 test
In first test we did was based on Call of Duty 2 multiplayer maps, High quality settings, dx0 no AA and AF. Results are average number of frames in 5 minute benchmark.
|
Map/Resolution |
1024x768 |
1280x1024 |
1600x1200 |
|
Carentan |
102,1 |
76,6 |
58,4 |
|
Leningrad |
96,3 |
65,1 |
47,8 |
|
Brecourt |
105,7 |
72,7 |
53,2 |
|
Burgundy |
106,5 |
71,6 |
55,2 |
|
Dawnville |
144,4 |
92,7 |
65,7 |
|
Toujane |
108,2 |
81,7 |
59,1 |
|
Matmata |
101,4 |
75,3 |
55,3 |
Although the results at the 1600x1200 screen resolution don’t look bad at all, in game it’s a bit different. Frames go down to 20FPS which affects gameplay.
In second test, CoD2 multiplayer, High quality settings, dx9, 4xAA, 16xAF. The results are average values of 5 minute long benchmark.
|
Map/Resolution |
1024x768 |
1280x1024 |
1600x1200 |
|
Carentan |
99,8 |
75,5 |
56,5 |
|
Leningrad |
70,7 |
60,2 |
44,7 |
|
Brecourt |
75,2 |
63,5 |
46,7 |
|
Burgundy |
80,2 |
65,2 |
47,1 |
|
Dawnville |
106,8 |
83,2 |
63,1 |
|
Toujane |
94,4 |
75,8 |
58,5 |
|
Matmata |
83,7 |
69,8 |
54,3 |
Just like in the previous test, x1800 starts to be short of breath at 1600x1200, this time with 4xAA and 16xAF. In both cases, we had no need to test at higher resolutions since the results would be disappointing.
The third test was based also on COD2 multiplayer but in dx7 compatibility mode that this game supports. Test was with high quality settings, 4xAA, and 16xAF. The results are average values of 5 minute long benchmark.
|
Map/Resolution |
1024x768 |
1280x1024 |
1600x1200 |
|
Carentan |
373,6 |
313,1 |
263,6 |
|
Leningrad |
273,6 |
237,7 |
195,2 |
|
Brecourt |
259,2 |
219,4 |
178,5 |
|
Burgundy |
237,9 |
218,2 |
175,8 |
|
Dawnville |
350,7 |
324,9 |
270,2 |
|
Toujane |
348,4 |
308,3 |
262,2 |
|
Matmata |
295,4 |
269,6 |
231,6 |
According to the results of the last test we can see that this Radeon gives good results in dx7 mode with no sweat, which is not much of an issue for even older cards.
Battlefield 2
As well as in CoD2 the tests of Battlefield 2 are made on most popular multiplayer maps. Benchmark is also made online with help of FRAPS and 5 minute long map plays. First par of tests was done with no Antialiasing and Anisotropic Filtering.
|
Map/Resolution |
1024x768 |
1280x1024 |
1600x1200 |
|
Dalian Plant |
121,9 |
108,3 |
102,8 |
|
Op. Clean Sweap |
132,8 |
119,1 |
110,3 |
|
Gulf Of Oman |
132,3 |
116,1 |
110,7 |
|
Road To Jalalabad |
115,9 |
105,9 |
96,6 |
|
Sharqi Peninsula |
91,5 |
85,5 |
80,3 |
|
Strike At Karkand |
109,1 |
101,8 |
97,3 |
Second part of the test, identical resolutions as in previous tests, but this time with 4xAA and 16xAF.
|
Map/Resolution |
1024x768 |
1280x1024 |
1600x1200 |
|
Dalian Plant |
104,4 |
96,6 |
82,2 |
|
Op. Clean Sweap |
113,2 |
101,5 |
87,2 |
|
Gulf Of Oman |
112,2 |
99,8 |
88,1 |
|
Road To Jalalabad |
102,8 |
92,7 |
84,3 |
|
Sharqi Peninsula |
88,4 |
82,4 |
78,6 |
|
Strike At Karkand |
108,3 |
94,6 |
82,7 |
As you can see for yourself, x1800xt bears well with the really demanding Battlefield. At the 1600x1200 resolution, 4x Antialiasing and 16x Anisotropic Filtering, number of frames per second was not going under 80FPS which is more then enough for total multiplayer experience.
Results of synthetic testes:
|
3DMark05 |
Game 1 |
Game2 |
Game3 |
3Dmark Score |
|
|
42,0 fps |
30,2 fps |
50,6 fps |
10008 |
|
3Dmark06 |
Game1 |
Game2 |
HDR1 |
HDR2 |
CPU1 |
CPU2 |
3Dmark Score |
|
|
15,2 |
17,9 |
19,8 |
20,4 |
0,63 |
1,01 |
5012 |
Conclusion:
The title itself gives you the most important message. The high end cards are still too expensive a toy for online gaming. We all know that when it comes to online gaming, it is of cruicial importance to have as much details as possible, as big frame rate as possible and of course high resolution. True gamer will spend a lot of cash on his "machine", but one should know that there are better soulutions out there then overpriced and now already old ATI Radeon x1800XT.
Is the graphic card that can not make top of the line results in Call of Duty 2 DirectX 9 mode worth all the cash? For €250+, which is more or less how much you will pay for this card, today you can probably get an even better card. Still we were surprised that this almost year and a half old high end card is still on top of the game.