ATI Radeon Xpress 200: Performance, PCI Express & DX9 for Athlon 64
by Wesley Fink on November 8, 2004 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
ATI X800 XT PCIe: nVidia nForce4 vs. ATI Bullhead
nVidia introduced nForce4 several weeks ago as their PCI Express updated version of the nForce chipset for Athlon 64. In nForce4: PCI Express and SLI for Athlon 64, we concluded the performance of nForce 4 and nForce3 Ultra was basically the same. However, with nForce4 sporting PCI Express graphics, we have the opportunity to compare the same PCIe video card directly on both systems. We first compared performance of the ATI X800 XT PCIe on both the ATI Bullhead Reference board and the nVidia nForce4 Reference board.| ATI X800 XT (PCIe), nVidia nForce4 vs. ATI Bullhead FX55, 2X512MB, 2-2-2-10 DDR |
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| Benchmark | nVidia nForce4 | ATI Bullhead ATI RX480 |
% Change nF4 to ATI |
| Halo | 106.6 | 121.9 | +14.4% |
| UT2004 - High Quality | 74.0 | 74.4 | +0.5% |
| Doom3 - High Quality | 102.5 | 97.9 | -4.5% |
| Far Cry 1.1 | 158.9 | 168.6 | +6.1% |
| RTCW - Enemy Territory Radar | 114.0 | 115.3 | +1.1% |
There are some very interesting results comparing ATI PCIe video on both systems. First, we see that Far Cry is still slower on nVidia, even with the ATI PCIe video card. This leads us to conclude that at least part of the performance hit that we see with Far Cry is a result of nVidia chipset or driver code. We see a similar anomaly in Doom 3 being slower with the ATI card on the ATI than it is with ATI on nVidia. Since everything else is the same in both setups, we again would look to ATI drivers or chipset code as the likely issue.
Halo is a significant 14.4% slower on nVidia/ATI than on ATI/ATI, but you will see in later benchmarks that nVidia PCIe on nVidia is roughly equivalent in performance to ATI PCIe on ATI. In the larger picture, this is a driver/code issue worth a look by manufacturers, but it doesn't reflect any real performance differences in these chipsets. Overall, the ATI Bullhead can be considered equivalent to a bit faster in performance than nForce 4 with both running an ATI PCIe video card. This is a remarkable accomplishment for the new ATI RX480/RS480 chipset compared to the more mature nVidia nForce4.
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flatblastard - Saturday, April 9, 2005 - link
Hmmmm, still no real availability even now...Looks like MSI may be our only chance at this chipset....what as bummer :(philpoe - Sunday, February 20, 2005 - link
Hmmm, after no real availability (in the US at least) as of Friday 2/18/05, there's suddenly a slew of shops selling the MSI board on pricewatch, including Newegg. Anyone know of a reason why the boards are so slow to trickle out?philpoe - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
Is it possible to purchase these reference boards? I seem to see them in retail-looking packages in reviews from Canada.If you can get your hands on one, are the BIOSes available to the public, or only to the select HW review sites?
Wesley Fink - Thursday, November 11, 2004 - link
PERFORMANCE WITH 4 DIMMS CORRECTED>We have added the following update to p.6:
"UPDATE 11/11/2004: ATI has provided an updated BIOS which corrects the issues of 333 timings with 4 double-sided dimms. With the new BIOS we were able to run 4X512MB DS OCZ 3200 Platinum Rev.2 at 2-2-2-10 timings at DDR400 with a 2T Command Rate. This performance matches the best we have seen with 4 DS dimms on an Athlon 64 motherboard."
Momental - Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - link
#35: I'm right there with ya, bud. Just when I "think" I've made up my mind to do the complete overhaul, the next exit appears on the highway taking me that much closer to the "Best Soft Serve in Town"!!The ol' gut tells me to hold out until some time just after the ball drops in Times Square and we'll all be in Fat City, so to speak. ;)
callius - Tuesday, November 9, 2004 - link
Somewhat OT maybe:anyone seeing a reason that the next rev of A64 supporting SSE3 (in market Q1/05) coul not be plugged in a 939-mobo (nvid, ati or via) without problems (except any necessary BIOS update) ?
callius - Tuesday, November 9, 2004 - link
Only minus vs nforce4 is that the SB does not support SATA-II's NCQ (for Seagate's upcoming 7200.8 series). Maybe with next SB in Q1/05 though ???mlittl3 - Tuesday, November 9, 2004 - link
Completely off topic, but does anyone know why there are four chipsets (two actively cooled, one passively cooled and the other with no cooling) in the SLI Tyan motherboard that #33 gave a link for?xeper - Tuesday, November 9, 2004 - link
i can't seem to find ANY mention whatsoever of shared memory allocation. can someone help me out here?nserra - Tuesday, November 9, 2004 - link
Isn’t this very funny, I mean Ati was a very close partner to Intel, and they now bring to intel its one competition product but for the intel competitor.I see now no reason for Dell or other companies go for intel, because really intel had (has) the edge with integrated solutions.
A "part" I thought that there weren’t AMD IGP chipsets because it wasn’t possible to use the integrated memory controller for graphics, at least until AMD64 rev E0 came out?
If ati is going amd on pcie first, these shows that amd have the best processor and will continue for the time been. Even dothan can do much to turn it around again to intel side. And i bet that new p4 2mb is still with problems (performance, heat, …) and every one is running away from intel because already know this even intel, bringing dothan to the desktop market.