Photograph: Marc SimonTo get the most bang from ultrarealistic-looking games such as Doom 3, Far Cry, and Half-Life 2 on a PCI Express-based PC, you need top-notch graphics hardware like ATI's Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition or NVidia's GeForce 6800 Ultra. But if you don't have $500 to drop on a graphics board, check out the new products using the companies' latest midrange graphics chips, which promise impressive performance for less than half the price of top-end boards.
We tested reference boards using ATI's new Radeon X700 XT chip and NVidia's GeForce 6600 GT chip. Each board included 128MB of memory, and for each we used the latest drivers (both of which were beta versions). Both of our test PCI Express-based boards performed well in our Intel Pentium 4 560 test system, but almost all of our early tests showed NVidia's GeForce 6600 GT holding the lead.
Game On
In games like Doom 3 and Far Cry, the NVidia chip's lead was pronounced. When running Far Cry at 1600-by-1200 pixel resolution, the 6600 GT posted 36 frames per second without antialiasing and 18 fps with it, while the X700 XT managed to crank out 23 fps and 10 fps, respectively.
When running Doom 3 at 1024-by-768 resolution, without antialiasing, the 6600 GT managed an impressive 55 fps, while the X700 XT clocked a more modest 40 fps. When we turned antialiasing on at the same resolution, the gap narrowed, with the 6600 GT dropping to 33 fps and the X700 XT slowing to 25 fps.
Both Doom 3 and Far Cry make extensive use of pixel and vertex shaders, which let game developers take advantage of powerful graphics processors to create custom effects. So, the chips' performance with those two games should provide a good indicator of how well they will handle future games.
In slightly older games, the two chips proved more evenly matched. For example, in our Halo test at 1024-by-768 resolution, the 6600 GT posted 76 fps to the X700 XT's 66 fps. In our Splinter Cell test, run at 1600-by-1200 resolution and on the game's medium setting, the ATI board won by posting 64 fps to the NVidia's 57 fps.
Good Buy
With the retail boards expected to sell for about $200, this generation of mainstream graphics chips should be a good value. NVidia clearly has the early lead in our preliminary tests. We expect retail boards based on both company's chips, and with fully baked drivers, to perform even better. NVidia's graphics card partners have started to ship their first retail versions of 6600 GT products; ATI says its first boards with the X700 XT will ship later this month.
It's less clear how long owners of AGP-based systems will have to wait to buy boards based on these chips. Both ATI and NVidia chose to build their latest mainstream chips for PCI Express systems first. NVidia says GeForce 6600 AGP boards should be appearing in the coming months. However, ATI has yet to announce any plans to offer the X700 series for AGP-based boards.
In the meantime, if you're the lucky owner of a PCI Express PC and you're ready for a graphics upgrade, you'll be hard-pressed to do better than a $200 board based on NVidia's GeForce 6600 GT.
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