Asus Extreme AX1800XT TOP
Too late, too pricey?
20th January 2006 15:01 GMT
To analyse the performance of the Extreme AX1800XT TOP, which currently stands as the fastest shipping ATI graphics product released to date, it was compared to the XFX GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB DDR3 XXX Edition. Driver defaults were used for image quality optimisations throughout, and stock clocks were used for all cards. If in-game controls could be used for both anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, they were, otherwise the driver was used to force the required levels (if applicable and the game allowed it without rendering errors). Tested resolutions were 1280 x 1024, 1600 x 1200 and 1920 x 1200.
Tests were run a minimum of three times at each setting, and the median value reported. In the case of manual 'run-through' testing with FRAPS, three consecutive runs that produced repeatable results, after further analysis, were used. If values weren't part of a repeatable set, they were discarded and obtained again.
F.E.A.R. loves to make a mockery of any graphics hardware you may have installed. Its basic rendering activity is shader bound on all modern hardware, therefore the better you process its pixel shader programs, the faster it likes to draw things on your screen, at a basic level at least.
There's not much between the two at first glance. Looking at the 1920 x 1200 score shows a five per cent lead for the Asus, though, and that board leads our F.E.A.R. test throughout.
Quake 4 doesn't have the same performance profile as Doom 3, despite sharing the same engine. Its shader program for light interaction is different, making it a harder test for modern hardware.
The Radeon can't hold off the GeForce in Quake 4, like it did in F.E.A.R. The XFX board has the measure of the Asus throughout, to the tune of a few percentage points at the high end.
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Intel Core i7 I7-920 Quad Core Processor (2.66GHz, 4x256kB, 4.8GT/s QPI, LGA 1336 Socket B)
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Quad Core Processor (3.4GHz, 6MB L3 Cache, 4x512KB L2 Cache, 2000 MHz Bus, Socket AM3)
Asus P7P55D Motherboard (Intel Socket H LGA1156, P55 Express, ATX, 16GB DDR3)
Intel Core i5 750 Qaud Core Processor (2.66GHz, 8MB L3 Cache, 2.5 GT/s Bus, Socket H LGA1156)
Asus M4A785TD-V EVO AMD 785G/SB710 Socket AM3 ATX Motherboard
