Gainward 6800 Ultra Golden Sample

Shader Performance Analysis

Having finally obtained a graphics card that can run the gamut of available shader types, and having the ability in 3DMark 2k5 Pro to choose which path to use for analysis, I decided to play with a bit of everything. Thus, I did the test on Proxycon with all the different paths in 1024x768 (no AA), then I redid the test for all paths with AA enabled, then I redid it in 1600x1200.

Basically, to avoid a lot of repeating, I took the results and drew the most significant results into seperate charts.

Basic Shaders

Here is the chart I made with the results for paths 2.0, 2_a and 3.0 (click the image to enlarge):

You will observe that path 2.0 is easily the slowest. On the other hand, performance between 2_a and 3.0 is more difficult to distinguish, there is no real winner between the two.

AA Comparison

In this chart, I compare the basic shader paths to the 2_a path with anti-aliasing in order to see what impact there is (click image to enlarge) :

In this chart, it is obvious that the 2_a path with AA is drawn down to the level at which the 2.0 performs without AA.

Hi-Definition AA Comparison

In this chart, I assemble the data from the same comparisons done at 1600x1200 :

As you can see, the 2_a and 3.0 paths cannot get themselves to compare favorably with the 2_a path at 1024x768. The increase in number of pixels overcomes the increase in rendering by a significant amount.