The Radeon X1600 XT and Radeon X1800 XT: ATI’s Ultra Threaded Architecture Page 7

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Call of Duty 2 was tested with a custom demo from the Prisoners of War single-player map. The game was configured in its DX9 rendering mode with all texture options manually set at high.

As with Chaos Theory, Call of Duty 2 likewise sees the X1600 struggling to produce playable frame rates with high in-game settings enabled at the higher resolutions. Depending on the individual’s tolerance for low frame rates, 1280×1024 might be playable but it’s fairly safe to say that only the lowest resolution would be enjoyable for the majority. Even the X800 struggles at the two higher resolutions, though 1600×1200 could be playable for some. The X1800 outperforms the X800 by 50% across the tested resolutions, though like the other boards it also sees its frame rate cut in half.

All three test boards see a fairly sharp performance loss with AA and AF enabled. Under this review’s high quality settings, the X1600 squeaks just over 30fps at 1024×768, with its frame rate plummeting at the higher resolutions. The X800 likewise fares poorly above 1024×768, losing a signficant percentage of its performance with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering turned on. The X1800, in contrast, turns the 50% performance lead it commanded over the X800 at plain settings into a 100% gain at all four resolutions. This performance disparity is most likely due to the X1800’s larger amount of onboard memory providing adequate storage space for the various textures, all set at high, combined with the increased frame buffer size due to the use of anti-aliasing.

rFactor was tested with a custom demo recorded on the Sardian Heights race track. The DX9 shader profile was selected for all tests. Worth noting is that the configuration tool lists rFactor’s application support for anti-aliasing as a super-sampling scheme.

All three test boards produced playable frame rates across the range of resolutions used, though it appears to be somewhat CPU-limited due to the proximity of the three scores at 1024×768. The X1600 performs extremely well at the lower resolutions, though even 1920×1200’s score of 35fps could be tolerable. The X1800 outperformed the older X800 by roughly 20% across the four resolutions.

As with Flaming Cliffs and Chaos Theory, all three boards saw a somewhat smaller performance loss from enabling the high quality settings compared to the other titles used. The X1600 produced solid frame rates at the lower resolutions and scores that could be satisfactory for some. And the X1800 maintained its uniform 20% lead over the X800.

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