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Palit 9600GT 1GB Sonic and HD3850 Super+1GB

Palit 9600GT 1GB Sonic and HD3850 Super+1GB

Half-Life 2: Episode Two

Although it has been almost three years since the release of Half-Life 2, Valve has made numerous enhancements to the source engine for Episode Two. Features like HDR and other special effects like motion blur have made it an even better looking game.

Like most source games, Episode Two is not a large challenge for modern graphics cards. As such, we cranked most of the details and special effects. Motion blur and full HDR were enabled, as well as 16X AF and 4x MSAA.

To test, we recorded a custom demo with lots of antlions and gravity gun action. The demo was then benchmarked using Valve’s built-in timedemo tool. The demo was run three times, and the average recorded.

The 9600GT Sonic 1GB is especially strong in Episode Two compared to the HD3850 cards. Almost twice as potent in fact. Even at 1920×1200 with cranked details and 4x MSAA, the 1GB of the Super+ is not enough to offset its lower bandwidth.

Prey

Unlike the other games in our benchmark suite, Prey is an OpenGL title based on the Doom 3 engine. Being an entirely different API than Microsoft’s ‘DirectX’ makes for some interesting contrast to the other benchmarks. Traditionally, Nvidia cards have been a bit stronger when it comes to OpenGL rendering than their ATI competitors.

Since Prey is based on the slightly dated Doom 3 engine, we maxed out everything to ensure it gives the cards more of a challenge. Highest details, all special effects and 16X AF and 4X AA were used for testing. Click any of the thumbnails below for a detailed look at the in-game settings.

To benchmark Prey, a custom demo was recorded and then benchmarked using Prey’s built in ‘timedemo’ tool. An average frames per second figure is reported for each run. I have found that Prey and other Doom 3 engine games tend to thrash the hard disk during the first timedemo run. As such, the first timedemo run is discarded, and three additional runs are conducted. The average is taken.

Again, we see the same trend in this OpenGL title. Both the 9600GT and the HD3850 reference card do very well in Prey. The Super+1GB isn’t quite as quick, but the game is still very playable at higher resolutions.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition

Capcom’s Lost Planet is available in both DX9 and DX10 varieties when run under Windows Vista. We’ll be testing both versions for this review. The Lost Planet demo was actually the first playable DX10 title to hit the web.

We’ll be using the Lost Planet demo for testing and will be taking advantage of its built-in benchmark. There are two game environments that are included with the benchmark; “Snow” and “Cave”. The snow area is generally much more GPU intensive as there is a lot of blowing snow to render. We stuck with 4:3 resolutions for testing as the Lost Planet demo seems to display 16:10 resolutions in letterbox, which does not provide a fair comparison to full screen 4:3 tests.

Just about everything is maxed out for testing, with the exception of having antialiasing disabled. There appears to be a bug preventing the DX10 version of the game to start with ATI cards using antialiasing. Even without AA enabled, this game puts significant load on modern graphics cards.

In the DX9 version of the game, the 9600GT and HD3850 reference card perform almost identically.

We see a similar pattern emerge in DX10 testing.

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Comments

  1. Winfrey
    Winfrey Very good writeup as always mike! Before I read this article I didn't know very much at all about Palit in the video card industry. I got a pretty good impression from this article though:thumbup
  2. Zuntar
    Zuntar Nice review Mike, easy to see charts too! Thanks!!!
  3. zero-counter
    zero-counter Would it have made more sense to compare the 9600gt 1GB DDR3 version to the 9600gt 512MB DDR3 version, in proving differences in memory size?

    The current comparison seems biased..considering memory type differences between the two 1 GB cards and the other card having a smaller memory size yet comparable memory type. These specifications can definitely impact the outcome of a benchmark comparison. On that note, your graphs showed the 3850/256MB/DDR3 as a very close contender for the 9600GT, given its memory deficiency.

    It is obvious in your benchmarks, that the memory type made a difference when comparing the 3850 ref. 256MB/DDR3 model to the 3850 1GB/DDR2 one. Why not at least the 512MB version of the 3850 if you were not able to procure a 1GB one (only current one I have found is the CF version)? I am aware that the tests are limited to what is on hand and available to you.

    Otherwise, the review was informative when comparing your charted info to other reviews out there to the 512MB version of the card in discussion (9600gt).

    Please correct me if my logic is flawed. Thanks! :)
  4. BuddyJ
    BuddyJ
    Would it have made more sense to compare the 9600gt 1GB DDR3 version to the 9600gt 512MB DDR3 version, in proving differences in memory size?

    Sure, it would have been great. Send us one.
    The current comparison seems biased..considering memory type differences between the two 1 GB cards and the other card having a smaller memory size yet comparable memory type. bla bla bla

    I don't think bias enters the picture. It's an apples to apples comparison for the ATI cards, with an orange thrown in because we were graciously provided with it, plus it gave readers a sense of what sort of performance they can get from a similarly priced card. Both Palit cards are right around $130.
    I am aware that the tests are limited to what is on hand and available to you.

    That should alone should have answered your original question.
  5. zero-counter
    zero-counter
    Buddy J wrote:
    Sure, it would have been great. Send us one.
    You may see the point I am attempting to push. If you want to be unbiased, yet informative, then you should procure samples of similar qualities for testing. If someone wants to pay shipping both ways, I could possibly loan a couple of things in the best interests of the site, let me know.
    Buddy J wrote:
    I don't think bias enters the picture. It's an apples to apples comparison for the ATI cards, with an orange thrown in because we were graciously provided with it, plus it gave readers a sense of what sort of performance they can get from a similarly priced card. Both Palit cards are right around $130.
    Apples to apples as in Fujis to Granny Smiths? Or Fujis to Fujis? The 3850 GPU core is identical, yes. The orange, as you stated, was admittedly the control in the review albeit not related to the 9600gt. But the memory type can impact performance severly, especially when enabling AA and AF with higher resolutions. I understand the price issue, but there is more to consider here.
    Buddy J wrote:
    That should alone should have answered your original question.
    This was obviously understood (as pointed out) and posted so that everyone can see that a lack of resources is not justification for a somewhat biased review. For future reference so as this issue does not repeat itself, reviews might be clear, concise, fair, and unjust (every other aspect of the review was absolutely great, just the odd comparison). I said that in hopes that future reviewers take this into consideration. ;)
  6. Thrax
    Thrax I don't think bias means what you think it means.
  7. lemonlime
    lemonlime You are 100% correct about including the other cards, zero.counter. Including results for a 512MB 9600GT and 512MB GDDR3 HD3850 would have been ideal. Believe me, I was of the same school of thought. I would have included them if I could have. The review definitely lacked the appropriate range of competitive products to provide an accurate picture of their abilities. None the less, I did the best I could with what I had to work with.

    I should mention that the 256MB HD3850 was paid for out of my own pocket for this review. It wasn't overly expensive, so I didn't mind. Beyond that, I'm afraid I just can't buy three aging cards. I don't get to keep the two Palit cards, (they are on their way to other Icrontic reviewers for other projects) so this is definitely not something I can justify. Icrontic was not able to pitch in for additional hardware and we had nothing else coming from other manufacturers, so that is all I had.

    It is very challenging to produce a solid review without all of the appropriate tools. I will see about adding a paragraph to the introduction of the article to forewarn readers about the lack of comparison cards and the apples to oranges comparison of the 9600GT and HD3850s. I do appreciate the feedback and the offer to lend hardware for review. We'll definitely take you up on that next time :)
  8. zero-counter
    zero-counter
    Thrax wrote:
    I don't think bias means what you think it means.
    Really? Care to elaborate? There are two issues at hand, availability of parts and the decision to run the review...displaying a seemingly biased outcome, given the details. To push the review, knowing what i have stated, could be viewed as being bias. Relatively speaking of course.

    Lemonlime...your article is great, and I understand the constraints. I was just bringing up a point that I am pretty sure the normal visitor of Icrontic would understand already, but someone googling the card and arriving at the article may not fully understand the comparison for whatever reason. Just a point. I appreciate your response and look forward to future reviews! :)

    I love this site, and will always view it as a useful, entertaining, and intellectually enveloping place to visit.

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