3Dmark03 measures performance by simulating games written to DirectX 9, which are contemporary games. We run this program in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialiasing and anisotropic filtering, and then configuring antialiasing at 4x and anisotropic filtering also at 4x. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialiasing. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialiasing to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our bechmarks, allowing direct comparison between them.

At a resolution of 1024x768 without any image quality enhancement, Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition from ATI was 4.99% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from NVIDIA, 21.93% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Sapphire, 22.39% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Gigabyte, 61.06% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from Leadtek, 61.27% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from NVIDIA, 85.57% faster than Radeon 9800 XT from ATI and 98.44% faster than GeForce FX 5950 Ultra from Gigabyte.

Both GeForce 6800 Ultra from XFX and Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition achieved almost the same performance as Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition from ATI.

At a resolution of 1280x1024 without any image quality enhancement, Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition from ATI was 8.10% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from NVIDIA, 28.03% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Sapphire, 28.96% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Gigabyte, 74.29% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from NVIDIA, 75.02% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from Leadtek, 101.67% faster than Radeon 9800 XT from ATI and 111.63% faster than GeForce FX 5950 Ultra from Gigabyte.

Both GeForce 6800 Ultra from XFX and Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition achieved almost the same performance as Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition from ATI.

At a resolution of 1600x1200 without any image quality enhancement, Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition from ATI was faster than all the other cards tested: it was 3.58% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from XFX, 4.97% faster than Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition from ATI, 9.36% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from NVIDIA, 31.14% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Sapphire, 32.39% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Gigabyte, 87.22% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from NVIDIA, 87.26% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from Leadtek, 119.91% faster than Radeon 9800 XT from ATI and 124.21% faster than GeForce FX 5950 Ultra from Gigabyte.

At a resolution of 1024x768 enabling image quality enhancements, Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition from ATI was faster than all the other cards tested: it was 6.20% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from XFX, 9.84% faster than Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition from ATI, 13.19% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from NVIDIA, 36.23% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Sapphire, 37.47% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Gigabyte, 95.57% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from NVIDIA, 95.61% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from Leadtek, 106.81% faster than Radeon 9800 XT from ATI and 132.88% faster than GeForce FX 5950 Ultra from Gigabyte.
 

At a resolution of 1280x1024 enabling image quality enhancements, Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition from ATI was once more faster than all the other cards tested: it was 43.68% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from XFX, 45.68% faster than Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition from ATI, 53,42% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from NVIDIA, 86.52% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Sapphire, 87.55% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Gigabyte, 187.41% faster than Radeon 9800 XT from ATI, 194.79% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from NVIDIA, 194.79% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from Leadtek and 227.35% faster than GeForce FX 5950 Ultra from Gigabyte.

At a resolution of 1600x1200 enabling image quality enhancements, Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition from ATI was 13.12% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from XFX, 14.91% faster than Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition from ATI, 21.32% faster than GeForce 6800 Ultra from NVIDIA, 47.35% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Sapphire, 48.40% faster than Radeon X800 Pro from Gigabyte, 134.90% faster than Radeon 9800 XT from ATI, 158.05% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from NVIDIA, 158.32% faster than GeForce 6600 GT AGP from Leadtek and 162,38% faster than GeForce FX 5950 Ultra from Gigabyte.