The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion GPU Performance
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 26, 2006 1:07 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Mid Range GPU Performance w/ HDR Enabled
Next we looked at mainstream GPU performance, targeting graphics cards that were priced at or below $300; for reference we've tossed in a few pairs of cards running in SLI or CrossFire.
Not only have we reduced the resolution, but we've significantly reduced the image quality settings here. The result is a good balance between image quality and performance, however we would much rather play with our high quality settings as Oblivion can be one very impressive looking game with the details cranked up.
The white lines within the bars indicate minimum frame rate
The king of the mid range is actually the Radeon X1800 XT offering pretty much the best performance you can get for under $300, even outperforming the GeForce 7900 GT. If you already have a Radeon X1600 XT and happen to own a CrossFire capable motherboard, then simply picking up one more X1600 XT will do wonders for your performance. Remember that the X1600 series can run in CrossFire mode without any external dongle, so all you need are two X1600 XTs and you'll be looking at fairly good performance. While we wouldn't recommend purchasing two X1600 XTs (you're far better off with a single 7900 GT), if you already have one it's the cheapest way to get a good performance boost in Oblivion.
The GeForce 7600 GT proves to be a good middle of the road performer here, offering good performance while being priced at under $200.
The GeForce 6600 GT is unfortunately overwhelmed by our medium quality settings, and unfortunately has now become a low end contender as far as Oblivion is concerned. Running a pair of 6600GTs in SLI improves performance a bit but still no where near what a pair of X1600 XTs will do in CrossFire mode.
The white lines within the bars indicate minimum frame rate
Once again we see that there's no significant performance difference between the GPUs at the top of the charts, but performance really begins to drop off after the 7600 GT.
The white lines within the bars indicate minimum frame rate
The Medium Quality Dungeon benchmark is very friendly to the NVIDIA cards here, with the first ATI showing being the X1800 GTO half way down the graph. The GeForce 7900 GT and Radeon X1800 XT continue to be the best performers here, but the 7600 GT isn't too far behind.
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MrCoyote - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
What good does it do to benchmark this game? The engine they licensed for this game is very limited in performance and unoptimized <b>(GameByro)</b>. Please wait until a patch comes out, then benchmark the game. This performance limit can be seen in various reviews across the web. A 7900GT or X1900XT should be getting more than 20-30FPS on this game.munky - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
People are not gonna wait for a patch to buy the game, and the whole premise of improved performance with a patch is uncertain. This review is useful for those who have the game, and would like to know if a certain upgrade would give them a significant improvement, or would just like to see how their performance compares to those with other video cards.Jackyl - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
That's very true that the game is very much in an "unfinished" stage and was released too soon. Any professional developer knows that the Gamebyro engine has it's share of performance problems. It is not in the same league of engines as others. Why they licensed this engine is beyond me.Warning...Don't post anything even remotely negative about the game on the official forums. Fanboys will be waiting to lash back at you. Yet people are complaining left and right on the forums of the performance problems, bugs, and interface problems. The PC game looks nothing but just a console port. Bad inventory screen system and GUI. Hopefully a 3rd party modder can change these things.
poohbear - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
the bad inventory has already been resolved w/ a user mod. look for the Btmod-2.20nts - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
The X1800XT can be had for less than the 7900GT and performs better...Why was it not include it in the Mid Range graphs?
SiliconDoc - Friday, July 17, 2009 - link
Wow, how quickly the complaining masses forget. $1,200.00 for two ati cards - LOLAnd here I've been told by all the disgruntled red fans that nvidia is the greedy scalping horror....
BWHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
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It's so nice that anandtech doesn't delete their old reviews.
TWELVE HUNDRED BUCKAROOS FOR 2 ATI CARDS.
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Once again I find out the red fans have been deceiving me all along.
This is great - another myth of the web, exploded thanks to the web.
Spoelie - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
So very truehttp://www.alternate.de/html/productDetails.html?a...">http://www.alternate.de/html/productDetails.html?a...
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For the money, the x1800xt 512mb seems a better deal.
bob661 - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
Just checked on Newegg and the prices are the same unless you go with the 256MB version of the X1800XT.bob661 - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
On Zipzoomfly, the 7900GT is a bit cheaper.Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
We inadvertently left it out of the midrange tests; I just updated the graphs and conclusion to reflect its inclusion.Take care,
Anand