AMD and Intel CPU Shootout with HL2

[Asus]

Again, FiringSquad has a great CPU shootout with the HL2.

Ahh 2300MHz on my Athlon 64.

And if you didn't see the 3D performance for the high-end cards, it's here at Anandtech.
X800XTPE>6800U
X800Pro=6800GT

They will soon have the midrange cards reviewed.

 

[blackeye]

To anyone that is interested you should not look at the xbitlab bencmarks as it has been stated that they are using ATI made timedemo's. They are also using different driver then all th other reviews.


Anandtech and Hardocp seem to be the only reliable reviews so far. Howevor there are still some questionable differences between the two. Howevor this may be due to the fact that Hardocp used 2 gigs of ram and ananadtech used 1, hardocp used a athlon fx-53 while ananadtech used a a64 4000. They are also using different timedemo's.

The 6800 gt and x800 pro seem to be at a tie. Howevor I would give the edge to the 6800gt even if it is only 3 percent faster at most. The 6800gt doesnt seem to lose as bad to the x800 pro as the 6800 ultra does to the x800 xt when AA and AF are turned on.

I think the 6800 ultra and x800 xt come down to more of a personall decision. The 6800 ultra doesnt seem to be as far behind as many expected and I am happy I got it. Not once did I worry about the 40% marketing hype ATI released.

From Hardocp

As for calling one video card a "winner" over the other, it just does not seem feasible and would likely be irresponsible to do so. ATI’s X800 series has not thrashed NVIDIA’s 6800 series silicon as many expected. Half Life 2 simply plays great on video cards from both NVIDIA and ATI. So let’s make this clear. The ATI Radeon X800 series of video cards will deliver a stellar Half Life 2 gaming experience. Also… The NVIDIA GeForce 6800 and 6600 series of video cards will deliver a stellar Half Life 2 gaming experience. There are simply no losers to be found if you have recently upgraded your video card. You have likely all made good gaming investments.

Update: We have gone back and updated our pages with a couple of graphs that show Maximum IQ settings in terms of AA and AF. Without a doubt the ATI Radeon X800XT-PE did by the best job at delivering a playable gaming experience. Of course it is up to the end user to determine if turning these options on give you any tangible gaming returns, but without a doubt if you want to run "ultra high quality settings," the ATI Radeon X800XT-PE gives a much better return than NVIDIA's solution.

The x800 xt seems to be a great card when looking at maximum image quality and frame rates.

Keep in mind the xS AA modes on the GeForce 6800Ultra OC employ a method of super-sampling + multi-sampling AA, whereas 6XAA on the X800XT-PE is purely multi-sampling.

I would suspect that the 6800 ultra would run AA/AF much faster if SS was turned off but I dont know if I can do that in the nvidia drivers. Maybee Nvidia will do it for me. (hint hint)

 

[Asus]

I would suspect that the 6800 ultra would run AA/AF much faster if SS was turned off but I dont know if I can do that in the nvidia drivers. Maybee Nvidia will do it for me. (hint hint)

They only have 2x and 4x for FSAA. Their SS is only on 8x which can be unusable because of the large hit. But it is by far the best as far as IQ, above and beyond what is needed though.

 

[blackeye]

They only have 2x and 4x for FSAA. Their SS is only on 8x which can be unusable because of the large hit. But it is by far the best as far as IQ, above and beyond what is needed though.

It still might be interesting to see some of the differences. I hope some of the sites go back in a mess around with these things.

Using a regular 6800 ultra card (not BFG 6800ultra OC)
Using a regular x800 xt (not x800 xtPE)
And some people have mentioned using a fast z reject. (dont know what that is)
Different drivers.
AA/AF (if possible)

I also was hoping to see minimum FPS because I know the x800 xt would perform better there. But I want to see how much. I dont care if my 6800 ultra runs above 60 FPS as long as its not going below 20-30FPS

Anyways Im getting a little concerned about all the different timedemo's floating around on the net. They are all different and I think is contributing to the varied benchmark resualts. I would think they should do a timedemo with atleast 25-30 minutes of actual gamesplay to get a accurate bencmark. So far it seems to be 10-20.