Battlefield 2
Image Quality Settings - 0xAA 0xAF
When playing at typical target resolutions in Battlefield 2, 8800 GTX leads the pack by a healthy margin, 8800 GTS beating or matching the dual-chip GeForce 7950 GX2. GeForce 7900 GTX just edges out the X1950 XTX at 1920x1200 and beyond, with ATI's single board champion happy to run with everything but the 8800 GTX at the lesser resolutions. CPU limitation comes in to play here on our test system at the lower two resolution steps for all boards, 8800 GTX enjoying it at 1600x1200 too.
Image Quality Settings - 0xAA 16xAF
GeForce 8800 GTX has a surfeit of texturing power such that a performance drop is negligible compared to the 0xAA 0xAF case at all resolutions. 8800 GTS doesn't move until 2048x1536, while X1950 XTX suffers less performance with the high level of AF enabled starting from 1280x1024. 8800 GTS is very equivalent to 7950 GX2 in terms of performance across the board.
Image Quality Settings - 4xAA 0xAF
When we swap AA for AF, Radeon X1950 XTX overtakes GeForce 7900 GTX with a consistent lead, 8800 GTS and 7950 GX2 trade blows again, and GeForce 8800 GTX dominates from 1600x1200 onwards, with more than 50% more performance at 1920x1200 than Radeon X1950 XTX. 8800 GTX loses just 15% of its base level performance (1024x768, 0xAA 0xAF) at 2048x1536 4xAA 0xAF.
Image Quality Settings - 4xAA 16xAF
Pushing BF2 at 3.1Mp with 4xAA 16xAF becomes a little more taxing for the 8800 GTX, with performance dropping off more drastically at 2048x1536. Radeon X1950 XTX stays with 7900 GTX to the end, while 8800 GTX and 7950 GX2 trade blows again.
General Conclusions
It's quite clear that G80's brute rendering power and efficiency allow the SKUs it powers in our testing to dominate the other single-chip products in the lineup. 8800 GTS is some distance faster than 7900 GTX and Radeon X1950 XTX, around 25% at high-res with AA and AF active. NVIDIA's dual-chip GeForce 7950 GX2, using SLI to accelerate rendering, is able to keep up, but then GeForce 8800 GTX leaves that product for dead in our Battlefield 2 test.
The trends shown here in terms of performance scaling, product matchups and performance differences at IQ levels should be demonstrable across our entire game lineup.
