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Real-world game tests
In this section we'll be putting this board through its paces in a number of popular game titles. In light of the part on test, we've chosen two resolutions for testing, both of which have been run (where possible) without anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering then again with 4x AA and 8x AF. Our chosen resolutions are 1024x768 and 1600x1200 - The former is likely to be the resolution of choice for this generation of mid-range parts, with 1600x1200 (particularly with all the eye candy turned on) chosen to stress the 256MB frame buffer of the X800RX, where it should give the part an advantage over any 128MB rivals.
Far Cry
First off is Crytek's ever-popular Far Cry, which still has plenty of graphical tricks up its sleeve despite showing its age a little now. For our testing here, the ATI parts utilised the Pixel Shader 2.0b path, with the GeForce 6600GT using Shader Model 3.0. Our timedemo is based around the games 'Research' level, and features action both indoors and outside in the jungle to represent all aspects of the title's performance.
At 1024x768, the GeForce 6600GT beats out the ATI parts, but all the boards offer superb performance at this level of detail.
Once we add anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, the X800 boards take a slender lead over the NVIDIA part, although again the framerate is playable for all cards.
There's still little to tell between our boards at 1600x1200, with the GeForce 6600GT squeezing out a lead of a few frames per second here.
The 256MB frame buffer on the X800 boards comes to the fore at 1600x1200 with 4x AA and 8x AF, giving them an advantage of around ten frames per second, although performance at these settings is slipping into unplayable territory.
Doom 3
The Doom 3 engine will be getting a lot of attention again soon with the release of Quake 4, but until then we've testing in high quality mode using the original proponent of the game engine current NVIDIA cards just love.
Performance is stellar with all our boards at 1024x768, but the NVIDIA card takes a huge 35 frames per second lead regardless.
Things become much tighter with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering turned on, with the lead of the 6600GT shrunk drastically to just five frames per second. Again, a very playable result from all the cards here.
1600x1200 sees the X800 boards start to struggle, while the 6600GT breezes away with a 25 frames per second advantage.
Yet again the gap closes with AA and AF enabled, with nothing to show between the boards as they all slip into unplayability at these settings.
Half-Life 2
As Doom 3 is NVIDIA's poster boy, so Half-Life 2 shows itself to be ATI's favourite time and again. The latest update to the Source engine has added High Dynamic Range support for use in Day of Defeat: Source and the upcoming Lost Coast level, but in doing so appears to have broken support for timedemos using previous versions of the engine. Thus, we're using an all-new timedemo here at Elite Bastards based around one of the games prison levels, and uses high details settings with the 'Reflect All' reflection setting. As this was recorded after our Radeon X800GT was benchmarked, this has naturally been omitted from these tests.
Using CATALYST 5.9 at 1024x768, the X800RX beats out the 6600GT by just over ten frames per second, as well as showing a bit of a boost over the previous CATALYST driver release.
With AA and AF added to the mix, the X800RX dominates even more, doubling its lead to over twenty frames per second and still refusing to drop even close to sub-100 FPS levels.
1600x1200 finds less of a gap between the two boards, but the X800RX still rules the roost while delivering playable framerates.
The X800RX remains playable all the way through to 1600x1200 with 4x anti-aliasing and 8x anisotropic filtering - While the 6600GT withers away due to its 128MB frame buffer, the ATI board keeps going strong, clocking in at not far under 60 frames per second.
The Chronicles of Riddick
Starbreeze Studio's movie tie-in The Chronicles of Riddick is up next, a graphical tour de force that stresses any GPU out there. Our testing here uses the 2.0 shader profile on high detail settings.
NVIDIA's GeForce 6600GT handles the Doom 3-esque shadowing in this game with aplomb, and takes around a twelve frames per second lead over the ATI boards, although all of the cards here offer good performance at 1024x768.
The lead is slashed with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering applied, with the 6600GT only holding a handful of FPS over the other cards as they all dip dangerously close to sub-30 frames per second levels.
1600x1200 sees performance dip further; with the 6600GT the only one capable of breaking 30 frames per second here.
AA and AF at this resolution pull us well into unplayable framerates, and gives us little to tell between the boards on test.
Need for Speed: Underground 2
Moving away from first-person shooters for a second, we join EA Games' latest and greatest from the Need for Speed series, a fun title with eye candy aplenty. Testing here was performed using FRAPs, with all graphical details turned to their highest levels.
Starting at 1024x768, the GeForce 6600GT leads by a handful of frames per second, with the X800 boards still performing nicely.
Turning on anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering hardly puts a dent in the X800RX and GTs performance at this resolution, and thus allows it parity with the NVIDIA board while retaining playability.
1600x1200 sees the X800 beat out the 6600GT, although only by a few frames per second.
The gap increases to five frames per second with AA and AF involved, although the game becomes unplayable by this juncture.
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (Shader Model 1.1)
The final game title in our testing is the latest in the ever-popular Splinter Cell series, Chaos Theory. For the first half of our testing using this game, we'll be focusing on the Shader Model 1.1 path included in the game to give a like-for-like performance comparison of the boards on test, as well as allowing us to evaluate anti-aliasing performance in this title.
The Radeon X800 boards take a slender lead over the 6600GT at 1024x768, to the tune of around five frames per second.
The lead all but disappears with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering switched on, but all boards perform pretty well framerate-wise considering the slow paced nature of the game, meaning that anything around 30 frames per second is acceptable.
1600x1200 again sees the X800RX and GT gaining a few frames per second over their NVIDIA rival.
And again, it's all square with AA and AF used at this resolution, although by now the framerate is too low to be playable.
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (Shader Model 2.0 and 3.0 with HDR)
We can now round off our testing by using this game's ATI specific Shader Model 2.0, and NVIDIA specific Shader Model 3.0, paths. The basic graphical features on show in these paths are similar, but are rendered in different fashions, so strictly speaking the performance between the two profiles isn't comparable. None the less, we'll show the results together for ease of viewing. Anti-aliasing is unavailable in this profiles, so all testing is run with just 8x anisotropic filtering.
There's nothing to tell between our boards at 1024x768, as they all offer a similar level of performance, and give a playable framerate despite the intensive use of extra graphical features.
Things aren't so playable at 1600x1200, but there is still nothing to separate the boards on show here with regard to performance.
Overclocking
We finish up our look at the Radeon X800RX with a peek at its overclocking potential. As always, the results here are only representative of the sample we received, so are not necessarily going to be reproducible on all boards of this ilk.
We discussed earlier that there is already 10MHz of overclocking headroom in the memory shipped with this board, but our sample proved to clock well beyond this, as we hit final, stable RAM clocks of 570MHz (1140Mz effective), an overclock of a huge 80MHz! Core overclocking put a similar grin on our faces, finding its way from the default 475MHz clock up a whole 100MHz to a final stable clock speed of 575MHz - Good stuff indeed, and a favourable comparison to the PowerColor X800GT board we reviewed which only hit a maximum overclock of 550MHz core and 545MHz memory.
To see how these new clocks affected performance, we tested using both Half-Life 2 and, firstly, Doom 3 at 1024x768 with 4x anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering.
Performance here takes an impressive upwards leap, gaining us twelve frames per second over the score at default clocks.
Half-Life 2 shows smaller gains, but still gives us an extra seven frames per second.
CATALYST 5.9 evaluation
There isn't much to say about ATI's latest driver set really - CATALYST 5.9 was always meant to be more of a bug fix release then one which would set the world alight with performance improvements, and so it has proved here. There are a few corner cases which have shown some small benefits, but overall CATALYST 5.9 offers the same level of stability and performance as its predecessor.
Conclusions
After our Radeon X800GT review, we discussed the choice you should make between such a board and a GeForce 6600GT, and those same rules should apply to Club 3D's Radeon X800RX. If you want a mid-range video card with good performance and a 256MB frame buffer, then this could be the board for you. On the other hand, if you are planning on moving up to a multiple-GPU system in future, or see the need for Shader Model 3.0 in your upgrade plans, then a GeForce 6600GT is still the place to go.
It has to be said however, that overall Club 3D's offering here today is an even more tantalising one still, coming in as it does at a slightly lower price point than most X800GTs on the market yet still providing a very full featured bundle, from the dual DVI support and two VGA converters to go with it through to the inclusion of a full game in the package. As mid-range X800 boards go, you won't find much better than this - Good performance at a great price.
Product information
Club 3D Radeon X800 RX 256MB
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Current UK pricing (at time of going to press) and availability:
- £111 inc VAT -
Many thanks to Club 3D for their efforts in providing us with a sample for this review
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