The FiringSquad have a new article out Called RADEON X800 PRO Performance with Pentium 4 that looks at the different CPU scaling you get when paired with Intel's Pentium 4! Here's a snip.
As promised, today we?re here to take a look at the performance of ATI?s RADEON X800 PRO with Intel Pentium 4 processors. Based on our preview from the beginning of this month, we already know the X800 PRO is fast, nearly doubling the performance of RADEON 9800 XT, and at a price point that is $100 less than ATI?s high-end RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition. This performance is provided by its 12-pipeline R420 core, which is clocked at 475MHz and its 256-bit memory interface operating at 900MHz. With all this graphics horsepower however, there are cases where the X800 PRO is held up by the performance of the CPU in the system. We saw this repeatedly in Epic?s latest shooter, Unreal Tournament 2004, and in other titles such Splinter Cell and even Far Cry. In these cases performance was the same across multiple graphics settings and screen resolutions.
Being CPU-limited isn?t necessarily a bad thing. From an optimists? viewpoint, eye candy features such as anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering are ?free?, meaning they come with no performance hit. You can also crank up the texture and geometry detail and screen resolution with little or no drop in performance. All of these settings combined produce an excellent picture. The downside is frame rate; with a faster CPU you could have all the visuals cranked up to their maximums and achieve higher performance. Basically, you aren?t getting the most bang from your buck.
RADEON X800 PRO Performance with Pentium 4
As promised, today we?re here to take a look at the performance of ATI?s RADEON X800 PRO with Intel Pentium 4 processors. Based on our preview from the beginning of this month, we already know the X800 PRO is fast, nearly doubling the performance of RADEON 9800 XT, and at a price point that is $100 less than ATI?s high-end RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition. This performance is provided by its 12-pipeline R420 core, which is clocked at 475MHz and its 256-bit memory interface operating at 900MHz. With all this graphics horsepower however, there are cases where the X800 PRO is held up by the performance of the CPU in the system. We saw this repeatedly in Epic?s latest shooter, Unreal Tournament 2004, and in other titles such Splinter Cell and even Far Cry. In these cases performance was the same across multiple graphics settings and screen resolutions.
Being CPU-limited isn?t necessarily a bad thing. From an optimists? viewpoint, eye candy features such as anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering are ?free?, meaning they come with no performance hit. You can also crank up the texture and geometry detail and screen resolution with little or no drop in performance. All of these settings combined produce an excellent picture. The downside is frame rate; with a faster CPU you could have all the visuals cranked up to their maximums and achieve higher performance. Basically, you aren?t getting the most bang from your buck.
RADEON X800 PRO Performance with Pentium 4
