[1]Review If 'the way it's meant to be played' is Nvidia's marketing mantra, then the ATI equivalent right now has surely got to be, 'it was never meant to be this way', writes Benny Har-Even.

It seems a long time ago since ATI proudly made its pact with Valve to give away Half Life 2 with each Radeon 9600 XT and 9800 XT card sold. While it seemed like a smart move at the time, the best gaming bundle ever soon turned a bit sour. What started as a bundled copy of Half Life 2, turned from a game to a voucher, and then simply into a very, very long wait. Of course, this was in no way ATI's fault, but the damage has been done.

In the mean time the behemoth that was Doom 3 finally lumbered into view and bulldozed even the excellent Far Cry out of the way to become the uber-game of the moment. Unfortunately for ATI, it runs fantastically well on Nvidia's 6800 series, even though specific features such as Pixel Shader 3.0 support and Ultra Shadow II aren't actually used by the Doom 3 engine.

The 6800 GT and 6800 Ultra cards can use their 16 pipelines to render 16 single-textured pixels in a single pass, a feature of which Doom 3 makes extensive use. Another bonus for Nvidia is that the game uses the OpenGL API rather than DirectX, an area where Nvidia has always been stronger than ATI.

All this means that, for now at least, Nvidia has regained the performance highground and established a lead over ATI, not only in benchmarks but in mindshare. Gamers are a fickle bunch, and with Half Life 2 around the corner (we hope), ATI is no doubt confident that things will turn around in the blink of a frame.

Of course you may be wondering why all this fuss is being made over two games, but we're not really talking about just two titles. Doom 3 and Half Life 2 will spawn a large number of other titles based on their engines, so the graphics card you buy now will have an impact on your future gaming experience.

The two cards we're looking at here are from AOpen and Leadtek, both familiar names in the graphics card market. As both are based on the GeForce 6800 Ultra they are identical in terms of 3D capabilities, with features such Ultra Shadow II and Shader Model 3.0 support. The differences lie in the design, the clock speeds and the game bundle so let's get down to it and look at the cards themselves.

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AOpen Aeolus 6800 Ultra

The last AOpen graphics card we tested was based on the GeForce 5900XT and impressed us at the time with its great mid-range performance. This card is very much a different kettle of fish, as here AOpen is showcasing Nvidia's top-of-the-line GeForce 6800 Ultra chipset. While the 5900XT card featured a distinctive custom fan design, this card is based on Nvidia's reference design. This isn't necessarily bad news. The reference design is generally something that Nvidia will have settled upon after plenty of R&D. For one thing the card is much lighter than the Leadtek, which is really weighed down by its large heatsink and fan. This makes the AOpen easier to handle and install. If you need to move your PC, it also makes it less likely to come out of its housing. Additionally, while it might be a reference design, it is effective, and I could feel the air being expelled at the rear of the card over the heatsink from a couple of feet away.

As this card keeps to the reference design it's no surprise that the clock speeds are completely stock too, with the GPU running at 400MHz and the 256MB of memory being 550MHz GDDR 3, giving an effective clock of 1100MHz. Being an unadulterated design and an early sample to boot we weren't expecting much in terms of overclocking but as you'll see we were pleasantly surprised.

A TV Out is located at the rear with cables for S-Video and for composite video supplied. As a further sweetener AOpen has bundled some games: Painkiller, SpellForce and Arx Fatalis. The first of these is a well-known title that's gained plenty of good reviews but the other two aren't likely to sway your purchasing decision.

As with all 6800 Ultra cards the AOpen features dual DVI outputs with adaptors for use with standard D-SUB connections. This means that you can hook up two DVI LCD monitors at the same time and get optimum quality from each. While most of us won't be able to enjoy such a luxury it's a great option to have. It also requires two power connectors running from different rails of a decent power supply. Nvidia has lowered its initial over-the-top 480W specification to a more reasonable 350W, but if you want to overclock you'll need to keep the PSU nice and beefy.

When you first power up the system with the card installed, the fan spins at full speed which makes quite a high pitched whine. Thankfully this settles down to a slower speed once Windows has booted and the noise is much reduced. The fan didn't speed up during benchmarking or game playing making it easy to live with.

So let's look at some results. Needless to say the AOpen was very fast indeed, but at default speeds it was a little slower than the Leadtek at almost every test, which you would expect, seeing as its core clock is running 25MHz slower. However, the fact is that while the AOpen is behind in all tests bar Halo, the graphs show that the gap is consistently very small.

Take 3DMark03 at the default resolution of 1,024 x 768 - the difference is only 357 points. Then there's X2: The Threat where the AOpen runs the Leadtek practically neck and neck across all test resolutions and image quality (IQ) settings. And with IQ switched on, the same was true in our custom Far Cry benchmark.

We're also now able to test with Doom 3 - a game that pushes graphics card like no title ever before. The built-in time demo doesn't stress AI and physics but it's a fantastic test for graphics cards and the quality of OpenGL drivers. All tests are run at High Quality, a setting that enables 8x AF by default.

Moving straight to the most demanding test, the AOpen was able to achieve 40 frames per second (fps) at 1600 x 1200 with 4x FSAA - only 1.2fps less than the Leadtek.

The great news is that the AOpen also proved very amenable to some overclocking. Despite its reference standard design we were able to take the GPU up to 425MHz and the memory to 1200MHz. Any higher and we saw artefacts while testing. Once overclocked the AOpen was actually able to overtake the Leadtek in some tests hitting 43.2fps at Doom3 with FSAA and AF at 1600 x 1200. However when overclocked the Leadtek pulled ahead again.

Considering the price difference and its overclockability the AOpen looks a more attractive option. The disadvantage is that there's no guarantee that you'll get a card that can overclock to the levels we reached, though by the same token you could get a board that will go even higher. However, even if you can't overclock the AOpen, it's so narrowly behind the Leadtek that of the two, it's the card we'd go for. And we'd spend the difference of a copy of Doom 3.

Verdict

All 6800 Ultra cards are very expensive and in terms of value for money a 6800 GT card is the sensible option. However, if you want the best and money is no object, then a 6800 Ultra is an attractive option. But at the same time, there's no need to throw money around. If you want top-end power without being overly extravagant, the AOpen would be our choice.

AOpen Aeolus 6800 Ultra
Rating	80%
Price	£344
More info	The AOpen site [2]

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Leadtek WinFast A400 Ultra TDH

In contrast to the AOpen card, the Leadtek looks markedly different from the reference design. Leadtek's cards tend to differ from the standard, the intention being to improve cooling performance over standard cards and to make them stand out from the crowd.

Leadtek has affixed a very large copper heatsink to the board providing better cooling performance than regular aluminium. This covers both the GPU and the memory and goes over the back of the card too. However, though the heatsink at the rear is copper-coloured it's just painted.

The fan assembly is unusual looking and covered with a grille. This ensures that you can't hurt yourself by putting your fingers in it while it is on, which can sometimes happen when you're opening up your case. Leadtek also claims that the fan is much more quiet than the reference unit. To be honest we didn't really notice it being much quieter than the AOpen, but it certainly wasn't noisy.

In addition the card features dual DVI ports and a TV-Out as you would expect. The game bundle is a little better than that of the AOpen with Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Gunmetal and Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. The latter is an especially fine title and at high resolution looks magnificent running on the card.

Another reason Leadtek has gone to the extra effort of creating a custom heatsink and fan is that the Winfast A400 TDH is clocked higher than standard with a 425MHz rating for the GPU, although memory speed is the same at 1100MHz.

So does this translate to an increased performance over the AOpen? In a word yes, but the difference in most of our tests was very slight - with a lead ranging from half a frame per second to two or three. In fact, Halo was unaccountably slower.

In Far Cry at a resolution of 1600 x 1200 with no IQ settings on, the extra GPU clock seems to have enabled the Leadtek to pull away. However, as soon as FSAA and AF kick in, memory bandwidth becomes the more important factor and the lead shrinks to only 1.4fps faster, due to the memory being clocked at the same speed. The Doom3 results tell a similar story.

 

However, when one takes into account the AOpen's overclocking performance, the Leadtek starts to look expensive. To redress the balance we overclocked the Leadtek, reaching a GPU clock of 455MHz and a memory clock of 1200MHz. Unfortunately, we found the experience unpredictable, with the card running fine one day and locking up the next. However, as the card had been tested elsewhere before we tried it, it may have already been pushed a bit too hard before we got our hands on it, so we can't really fault Leadtek for this.

When it was stable, however, the overclocked Doom 3 results gave the Leadtek a slightly larger lead over the overclocked AOpen, with a 2.6fps difference.

What you have to ask yourself though is, whether this slender lead is worth the £40 extra over the AOpen? We don't really think so, but it depends on how important each FPS is to you. So if you're desperate for that bit of extra performance, however slight, and a better game bundle to boot, the Leadtek will fit the bill.

Verdict

There's no getting away from the fact that £387 is a lot to spend on a graphics card but if you do stump up the cash the Leadtek won't disappoint. The non standard heatsink and fan is effective and quiet, while reaching a core frequency of 455MHz and 1200MHz for the memory is pretty good going. We'd don't feel it's worth the extra over the AOpen but if you feel like pushing the boat out, the Winfast A400 TDH will deliver the goods.

Leadtek WinFast A400 Ultra TDH
Rating	80%
Price	£387
More info	The Leadtek site [3]

Visit The Reg's Review Channel [4] for more hardware coverage.

Links

1. http://www.trustedreviews.com/
2. http://www.aopen.nl/
3. http://www.leadtek.com
4. http://www.theregister.co.uk/personal/reviews/