ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 and NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5650: Taking on DX9
by Andrew Ku on September 14, 2003 11:04 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Splinter Cell
We used Splinter Cell in the past briefly, but AA and AF aren’t recommended by the creator because of the way it was designed. Even so, the game is still very detailed and takes its toll on even the newest of hardware.
We ran the cards through all benchmark scenarios, but to avoid repetition, we will only include benchmark scores from two of the scenarios. As we push up the resolutions, the Mobility Radeon 9600 increases its 10% lead at 1024x768 by another 6%. At 1600x1200, this scenario hits sub 20fps for both graphics processor, and game play is, for the most part, unreasonable.
The largest difference between the two cards ended up being 28% at 1600x1200, but neither card ended up with sub 10fps scores in any of the scenarios.
We should note that the GeForce FX Go5650 was able to decrease the differential between the Mobility Radeon 9600 in one of the benchmark scenarios. However, the difference between the two only started at 6% at 1024x768, and ended up dropping to 3% at 1600x1200.
One glitch that we stumbled upon in this title was the interference of SpeedStep with the internal benchmark counter. With SpeedStep enabled, the game derives the wrong processor frequency, and therefore, reports the fps wrong. The developer has since been informed of this.
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Andrew Ku - Monday, September 15, 2003 - link
We are currently revising our graphics benchmark suite in the anticipation of future DX9 stuff. These two GPUs are full DX9 parts, and we are benchmarking them accordingly. UT2003 and our current line of benchmarking titles are DX8, and therefore aren't specifically appropriate for this context. Why are our choices of benchmark titles odd? The Mobility and Go mobile graphics parts are no more than mobile version of desktop processors (clocked down, better power management features and in the M10 case integrated memory package).dvinnen - Monday, September 15, 2003 - link
Where's UT2003 and other stables? Odd choice of benchmarks. I would of liked to see how it stood up to desktop varients also.Andrew Ku - Monday, September 15, 2003 - link
AgaBooga,Question 1: Actually, we were considering memory bandwidth as a possible issue. I will try and report back as soon as we sort this out.
Question 2: We tested at 1600x1200 for benchmark purposes, as it shows degrade. Additionally, the newer desknotes and mobile multimedia notebooks are capable of this resolution and higher.
Anonymous User - Monday, September 15, 2003 - link
Great review, funny too. (And it wasn't just the horrible failure of the Go5650 to perform that I found amusing!)AgaBooga - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
Wow, nice set of benchmarkings applications! That is really something you've put together! My compliments to you!Do you think it is bound by something other than the GPU at 1024x768 on Splinter Cell 2_2_1 Set 1? Also, why was it tested at 1600x1200 because laptop users usually don't use resolutions that high on a relatively small screen than what is used on a desktop.
Andrew Ku - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
I am somewhat considered a new writer. My first article was the CEO Forum - Q3/2003.AgaBooga - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
New article writer? Not bad, it seems pretty good!