The Right Graphics Card for Your Need

Continued from page: 4

Monday, October 01, 2007

High-end cards

This category is for those with serious gaming intentions and slightly restricted budget. The entire category mainly had NVIDIA 8800 GTS cards with one ATI 2900XT card. ATI was clearly outdone in numbers of cards by NVIDIA, but thanks to its strong performance and excellent features, it came out as the dark horse in this race.

3D Mark06 and Vista score
Unlike extreme gaming, in this range, we did notice a significant difference of score when we compared the top scorer with other cards. ATI 2900XT the surprise pack in the lot, managed a top score of 10706 3D Marks, followed by MSI NX8800 GTS and Leadtek 8800 GTS. In Vista all of them gave an overall Vista experience score of 5 and Vista gaming score of 5.9, which is extremely high. Though ATI Radeon 2900XT was able to hold on the top position throughout, some of the other cards lost it when some real challenge was thrown upon them.

F.E.A.R
This game is feared by all cards because of its high intensity and graphically challenging scenario. The surprise element in this test was MSI NX8800 GTS, which out of no where topped under the four defined conditions of the game, closely followed by ATI Radeon 2900XT. All other cards performed in close proximity. We were a bit surprised to see a 320 MB RAM 8800 GTS scoring well above the 640 MB RAM ones. So, we cross-checked it, a couple of times and got similar results. But hold yourself from drawing any conclusions now, as the assault continues.

ATI HD2900XT512 MB

Company of Heroes
This game helped us to identify the man amongst the boys. The challenge thrown by this graphics intensive game was most efficiently tackled by ATI Radeon 2900 XT, which maintained its supremacy over the others. Leadtek 8800GTS with 640 MB RAM along with ASUS 8800GTS were in close proximity to each other, but we noticed that with the increase in resolution, ASUS 8800GTS had a more significant fps drop than Leadtek. The interesting observation was the fact that MSI 8800 GTS which performed so well in F.E.A.R couldn't live up to the expectation in this test.

Doom 3
Interestingly, all cards performed similarly in Doom 3, with no one particularly showing any extraordinary frame rates. All scored in and around 60 fps, though two cards which couldn't survive this test were ASUS 8800 GTS (320 MB) and Leadtek Winfast PX8800GTS (320 MB). They could hardly manage a score of 39 fps, given any resolution. This could be attributed toward their lower RAM.

BioShock
In Bioshock, across all ranges, we noticed that the main drop in frame rates was at 1280x1024 resolution. Here also, we noticed a similar trend. At 1024x768 all performed similarly with a score of 60 fps (avg), but as we increased the resolution some got throttled under stress. The one which maintained its supremacy was once again ATI Radeon 2900 XT. It was equally matched by XFX 8800 GTS (640MB). All the other cards scored around 50 fps (avg), which is a good score for this game.

XFX 8800GTS 640 MB

The verdict
For this category we didn't have to scratch our head as much as we did for the Extreme range as ATI Radeon 2900XT comprehensively top-scored in terms of price, performance and features. For features, we considered essential elements, like HDCP support, HDMI support, and game bundle. Though, cooling was not as essential as all of them used fans for cooling. Warranty was also not a differentiating factor, as all the cards had a warranty of 3 years.

Editor's choice
ATI Radeon 2900XT came up as the dark horse in the race. The only participant from ATI, in this category, outperformed all other cards in our performance tests. Being the only card with HDMI support, it's also got a thin edge over others, in terms of features. Even though it is the second costliest card in the lot, the edge in performance and features helped it attain the top spot with an overall score of 92 (out of 100). It's a perfect option for pro-gamers, both in terms of performance and features.

Lab's recommended
Leadtek 8800 GTS (640 MB) emerged as the second best card in this category, in terms of price, performance and features. Though for performance Asus 8800 GTS and XFX 8800 GTS (640 MB) were slightly better than this card, but when you take into account the fact that this card ships with two games and is among the most affordable cards in the lot, it surely makes it a good buy. Even if you see the overall scores, there is very little to choose between this one and the ASUS 8800 GTS or XFX 8800 GTS (640 MB), the difference of 1 or 2 points can be overlooked.

Leadtek Winfast PX8800GTS 640MB

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