Conclusion

ATI’s pulled off one hell of an accomplishment. As shown by our testing, with one simple driver update, ATI’s gone from last to first place in Quake 4 performance. There’s a wealth of data you can glean from these benchmarks.

For one thing the RADEON X1800 cards really don’t begin to shine until you turn on 4xAA. For an example, let’s take a look at the Quake 4 numbers at 1600x1200 in high quality mode. While the margin between the X1800 XT and GeForce 7800 GTX was merely 5% in favor of the X1800 XT 512MB without AA, the margin opens up to a whopping 18% once 4xAA is applied. Meanwhile, the X1800 XL goes from finishing behind the GeForce 7800 GT, to outperforming it by 10% at 1600x1200 with 4xAA/8xAF.

The tables turn a little once Quake 4’s ultra quality mode is turned on. The GeForce 7800 GT is able to outperform the RADEON X1800 XL, while the GeForce 7800 GTX pulls to within 16% of the X1800 XT. We have a feeling that the X1800 XT’s 512MB of memory is helping it maintain its lead a little here. That would help explain the X1800 XL’s surprisingly slower showing in Quake 4’s ultra quality mode (remember that the ultra quality mode is borrowed from DOOM 3, using uncompressed textures and full resolution normal maps, with a typical level taking up over 500MB of texture memory.)

Now that’s ATI’s demonstrated that they can deliver a faster OpenGL RADEON card, the onus is now on them to deliver boards to retail. The RADEON X1800 XL still hasn’t shown up on Price Watch. Both ZipZoomFly and Newegg carry X1800 XL boards from ATI and Sapphire (with prices starting as low as $380), but this is still woefully inadequate to compete with the avalanche of GeForce 7800 GT cards that can be found on the market. As we showed you earlier this week in the news, the GeForce 7800 GT can be easily purchased online with a free copy of Call of Duty 2 for as low as $340. ATI’s got to get more boards on the market in order for prices to fall.

Meanwhile, the RADEON X1800 XT can’t be purchased at retail yet. ATI has stated availability of November 5th. That’s about 2 weeks from now. Until ATI is actually able to deliver a product on time, we’ve got to take this date with a grain of salt. Sure, it’s possible ATI may be able to deliver on their promises this time, but given their track record it’s prudent to be skeptical. If ATI can deliver though, they’ve got an excellent chance at regaining mindshare among enthusiasts.

Clearly ATI’s got a strong product. The benchmarks we’ve presented to you today show they’ve got the fastest graphics card on the market for Quake 4. Now the question is how will NVIDIA respond? It’s certainly possible they may have a few tricks up their sleeve in the driver department to improve the performance of the GeForce 7800 GT and 7800 GTX as well.