Pixel Shader - 3DMark Tests

Here we'll take a look at the relative pixel shader performances using a variety of the 3DMark feature tests.

In the old PS1.1 Pixel Shader test we can see that where the older Radeon’s become somewhat fill-rate limited at higher resolutions, both the X800’s still stay predominantly CPU bound in this particular test. At the highest resolution the X800 XT PE opens up a 6% lead over the X800 PRO and a larger 44% lead over the 9800 XT, despite it still being system bound at the resolution. The X800 PRO manages to attain a 36% performance lead over the 9800 XT at high resolutions as well.

The PS1.4 “Advanced Shader” test from 3DMark2001SE isn’t showing itself to be entirely fill-rate bound here, as there does still appear to be some system / CPU limitations there, but it is much more fill (Pixel shader) limited than the previous test. Here the gap from the X800 XT PE to the X800 PRO opens up to 49%, whilst the gap to the 9800 XT is about 88%. The highest performance difference from the X800 PRO to the 9800 XT is 25%, which is well below their theoretical differences.

Under the Pixel Shader 2.0 test from 3DMark03 we are seeing much greater performance differences between the boards than in the previous test. The X800 XT PE is up to 65% higher performance than the X800 PRO and very close to being 3 times the performance of the 9800 XT! Given the 9800 XT used not to be considered a slouch in this test, comparatively, these gains are fairly impressive. The X800 PRO even shows as much as an 82% improvements in this test over the 9800 XT.