Gaming Benchmarks

As we saw the synthetic benchmark results, the next logical step is to dive into the real gaming performance of the PowerColor Radeon X1950 XTX 512MB video card. As reference we will use a NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT card to see the performance differences. Each card is going to run each game at 1280x1024 settings using a variety of AA & AF 3D effects. So in effect we are stuffing both cards in the same system, using the same settings and spending some time playing games and performing tests on the following game titles, let's check what we got.

Who doesn't know the game Far Cry? You should at least have heard about it... It's the game that came out right before Half-Life 2, Doom 3 and so on and set some new standards in gaming experience. Without a doubt, Far Cry was the most advanced graphics seen in any PC game. Everything in this game looks amazing, and the level of verisimilitude is unprecedented. Far Cry isn't just a stunning technical accomplishment. It's quite possibly the best single-player first-person shooter experience for the PC since Half-Life. Since Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 came out Far Cry had to share the welt on de gaming market.

Far Cry - 1280x1024 Gaming Results

Gaming Results - 1280x1024 - E6300 2.56GHz - 2GB RAM
	Radeon X1950 XTX	GeForce 7900 GT
No AA/No AF	112.33 fps	115.83 fps
2x AA/4x AF	111.55 fps	105.06 fps
4x AA/8x AF	110.87 fps	84.47 fps
SM3.0/HDR	89.09 fps	57.25 fps

Yeah I am a Far Cry fan, and it keeps amazing me with the game play itself; on top of that it is one excellent game to checkout the performance of a graphics card. We can say that both cards perform quite similar, although when Anti-Aliasing comes into the picture the GeForce 7900 GT is trailing a bit behind. Far Cry is also the one game where you can enable HDR. This comes in handy as it adds some more complexity and processing towards the video accelerator. The PowerColor Radeon X1950 XTX definitely has the edge when HDR is enabled and performs noticeably better then the GeForce 7900 GT.

Next on our list of favorite games is Doom 3 developed by id Software. Doom 3 is quite possibly the best-looking game ever, thanks to the brand-new 3D graphics engine used to generate its convincingly lifelike, densely atmospheric, and surprisingly expansive environments. At the same time, when you look past the spectacular appearance, you'll find a conventional, derivative shooter. Doom 3 is essentially a remake of the original Doom, though series fans will find reimagined versions of almost every monster from both previous versions in the new sequel.

Doom 3 - 1280x1024 Gaming Results

Gaming Results - 1280x1024 - E6300 2.56GHz - 2GB RAM
	Radeon X1950 XTX	GeForce 7900 GT
No AA	172.7 fps	154.5 fps
2x AA	158.9 fps	127.1 fps
4x AA	124.4 fps	88.9 fps

When looking at the game play results we noticed that the reported frame rates are quite within range for both cards. Although the Radeon X1950 XTX delivers higher frame rates from the start and when applying the Anti-Aliasing feature the real power of the R580 chip surfaces and leaves the GeForce 7900 GT well behind. Of course these results are a bit of scale as we only used a GeForce 7900 GT as a reference point. A GeForce 7900 GTX, or even a GeForce 7950 GX2 might have turned the tables towards the NVIDIA based cards due to their advantage at OpenGL performance.