4. The First Simulation Benchmarks

Unfortunately, ATI was not able to give us a notebook with the MR9600 DirectX 9 powerhouse before the launch deadline, so could not conduct extensive testing.

Instead, we were given the opportunity for a 1-hour benchmarking session on two pre-installed desktop systems in order to get a first impression of how the new chips perform. The only benchmarks that we were allowed to use here were four that were selected by ATI (3D Mark 2001/2003, NVIDIA Chamelon Mark and Unreal Tournament 2003), which makes the results much less meaningful.

Both systems were based on the popular Shuttle barebone systems. One of the systems was equipped with NVIDIA's desktop GPU GF4 Ti4200, and the other had the MR9600 in the form of a typical AGP graphics card.

Because the system, graphics driver and benchmarks were all pre-installed from ATI, and because ATI only allowed us to use certain benchmarks, the following results should be viewed with a certain amount of caution. Here, we will dispense with making any direct comparison to other cards and let the benchmarks speak for themselves. Because the tests could not be conducted under our usual lab conditions, we present them here in a neutral fashion and without comment.