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     located at http://www.cdrinfo.com.

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1. Introduction

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2. Features

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These are the main characteristics of the AOpen Aeolus 6800Ultra.

GPU	nVidia GeForce 6800-Ultra Chip Technology : 256-bit DirectX Generation : 9 Process : 0.13 Micron 16 Pixel Pipelines
Video Memory	DDR3 256 MB
Highest Resolution / Colors / Refresh Rate	2048x1536 / 32bit / 85Hz
RAMDAC speed	400 MHz
2D Performance	2048x1536 @ 85hz
Revolutionary 3D Accelerator Features	Optimized DirectX and OpenGL acceleration
Connectors	DVI connector x 2 TV-Out(S-Video) x 1
Driver Support	Microsoft Direct3D®, DirectDraw® ,DirectVideo® and ActiveX® for Window 95/98/ME® OS : Windows 2000/XP DirectX : 8 / 9 SGI OpenGL ICD : Windows 2000/XP
Software Package	Auto driver installation wizard User-friendly interface to control VGA settings Full version WinDVD
Accessory	Cable : S-Video to Compose cable x 1 DVI-CRT converter x 1 User's Guide : AOpen User's Guide x 1 VGA driver disc : AOpen VGA driver disc x 1

The AOpen Aeolus 6800Ultra is based on the NV40 architecture. The RAMDAC speed is clocked at 400MHz. Its card uses 256MB of RAM, clocked at 1100MHz.

On-screen properties for the 6800 Ultra as reported by the VGA driver properties tab are show below:

Several features of the Aeolus 6800Ultra:

- CineFX 3.0

This is a groundbreaking new hardware technology that pushes 3D real-time graphics one step closer to film quality. It offers infinite length shader programs, dynamic flow control, displacement mapping, vertex frequency stream divider and Multiple Render Target (MRT) technology. Previously, highly complex effects were not possible without sacrificing performance and precision, because of long shader programs that required many computational passes. Now, with the CineFX 3.0 engine, groundbreaking effects can be created without compromising performance.

- SLI enabled

The NVIDIA nForce4 Scalable Link Interface (SLI) technology allows two graphics processing units in a single computer. This technology takes advantage of the PCI Express bus architecture and features intelligent hardware and software solutions that allows multiple GPUs to work together and achieve exceptional performance.

 

 

- UltraShadow II

More photo-realistic scenes and environments in your games, without compromising PC performance. Complicated lighting and shadow effects become practical and next-generation games rise to the next level in cinematic realism.

- E-Color 3Deep

E-Color 3Deep provides color and lighting correction to optimize your 3D gaming environment. 3Deep eliminates dark or washed out graphics for a key competitive edge in multiplayer games.

- Pixel Shader Model 3.0

Better performance and more realistic shades to produce high quality images within games.

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3. A closer look

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4. Test System

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• Processor: AMD64 3500+ NewCastle (939 socket)
• Case: Antec 1080AMG
• Motherboard: ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
• Memory: 2x512MB Corsair XMS TWINX1024-3200XL Memory
• Hard Disk Drive: WD800JD 80GB 7200RPM
• DVD Burner: Pioneer DVR-A08XLA
• Power Supply: EzCool 550Watt
• OS: Microsoft WindowsXP Pro SP2
• DirectX: v9.0c

Benchmarking Software
3DMark05,03,01
Codecreatures Benchmark Pro
AquaMark3 v3.0
RivaTuner
Farcry v1.3
HL2
Doom 3
Thief 3
Ground Control II
Colin McRae '05

For comparison reasons, we will be posting the results of the AOpen Aeolus 6800 Ultra along with those of the Sapphire X850XT graphics card. Both cards are considered Heavy Duty, sufficient for most heavy 3D tasks.

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5. 3DMark05

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6. 3DMark03

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3D Mark is a widely used and accepted benchmark that stresses the DirectX performance of a VGA card. A very strong point of 3DMark is that it's VGA card measuring is does not require any CPU power. So the resulting fps are a good reference a VGA card's rendering performance. For testing the performance of each card we used the 4 game benchmarks 3DMark has.

3Dmark03 also includes sound and CPU tests as well as some other feature tests.

- Game Test 1 - Wings of Fury (DX7)

This test is a combat flight simulator written for older hardware (DirectX 7). Particles are used a lot in this test - smoke and vapor trails, flak and gunfire, and explosions are produced using point sprites and quads.

- Game Test 2 - Battle of Proxycon (DX8)

This test is a simulation of first person shooter game types. 1.1 and 1.4 Vertex shaders are widely used since all character models are skinned using vertex shaders.This makes this test a good vertex shader comparison for VGA cards.

- Game Test 3 - Trolls' Lair (DX8)

This test should be the favorite of all RPG lovers. It is a cut scene of a female warrior facing two malicious trolls. Again the same vertex and pixel processing is used as in game test 2.

This test also uses post-processing effects, such as Depth of Field and Bloom effects which are widely used in today's game cut scene sequences.

- Game Test 4 - Mother Nature (DX9)

Mother nature represents the level of effects and realism that are possible using 2.0 vertex and pixel shaders, plus some other features that DirectX 9 offers.

In the first three games, the AOpen Aeolus cards reported the better performance, while in the fourth game test, the X850XT took the lead by a 5fps difference.

- 3DMark Official score

If you test your machine with 3DMark, you can post the results at 3DMark's online result browser. For more information visit futuremark.com.

As expected, according to the GT results, the Aeolus dominated this specific benchmark, with a total of 13271 3DMarks total.

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7. Codecreatures

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CodeCreatures is a synthetic 3D benchmark that is a good reference for VGA performance comparison. This is a high-end 3D benchmark that also requires DirectX 8 hardware, making a good tool for measuring the potential of DirectX 8 game performance.

The Codecreatures benchmark is written with Microsoft's DirectX 8.1 API and incorporates the use of Vertex and PixelShaders popular on next generation 3D accelerators.

The benchmark plays a photo-realistic nature scene and calculates the performance of the graphics adapter by measuring the fps that it can display at 1024x768, 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 resolutions.

-Codecreatures number

The codecreatures number is the resulting score of the total benchmarking process and is basically the geometric mean of the three frame rates multiplied by 100.

The use of nVidia's PixelShader Model 3.0 greatly improves the performance of these cards. This test uses Vertex and PixelShaders, and CineFX engine makes its appearance, producing more realistic scenes. With a total of 7653, this card is sure to satisfy any demanding user.

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8. Aquamark3 / 3DMark 2001

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9. Half life 2

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10. Doom 3

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11. FarCry

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You are Jack Carver running your own boat charter business in beautiful Micronesia. With a past best left behind you, you'll be focusing on your present assignment: escorting an ambitious journalist named Valerie Cortez to the Island of Cabatu. It seems like a piece of cake, but you'll soon learn: paradise can be hell.

Farcry is an awesome First Person Shooter (FPS) based on a last generation 3D engine named as CryEngine. Real-time editing, bump-mapping, static lights, network system, integrated physics system, shaders, shadows and a dynamic music system are just some of the state of-the-art features that the CryEngine offers.

A great advantage and strong point of the CryEngine is its physics system which supports character inverse kinematics, vehicles, rigid bodies, liquid, rag doll, cloth and body effects. All physics seem to be very realistic and you never get bored when facing enemies, since character models have multiple animations that blend in believable ways.

With an integrated shader system and a massive terrain which maximizes the view distance to 2km, these features make Farcry a perfect action game and also a referable benchmark to speak of.

- Benchmark Settings

For this game we recorded a custom demo from the start of the Rebellion stage. We chose an indoor scene in order to avoid getting the CPU bound effect. This will result in slightly higher results since it is also less GPU intensive, but we can't afford being stuck at 40-50 fps because of our CPU.

The latest patch (1.3) was used for our tests which updates the game's graphics engine to use the 3.0 Shader model. This option is only supported for the 6800 series.

The resolutions we ran the demo under are the following:1024x768, 1280x1024 and 1600x1200.

Not much to say here, as the above graph speaks for itself. The difference in fps here is massive. Even at 1600x1200, the 6800 Ultra went all the way up to 143 fps average. Great performance once more.

In the first of the tested resolutions, the Aeolus once more was out of reach in terms of fps, while with the second and third resolutions things changed, as the framerate dropped for the Aeolus 6800Ultra whereas the X850XT managed to remain steady across all resolutions and at 1600x1200 actually produced a higher framerate.

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12. Thief 3

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Instead of Deus Ex from now on we'll be testing our cards using Thief 3. It's based on the same engine but it's much less GPU intensive and playable by more VGA cards than Deus.

The game makes severe use of Pixel Shader 1.1 instructions, the bloom effect and stencil shadows to achieve a wonderful result in your screen.

In the game you play the part of Master Thief Garrett who is back to rule out any evil forces using his unique stealth abilities. Deadly Shadows shows what stealth gameplay is all about. This game really gives you the feel of sneaking around and holding your breath when stuck in a sticky situation.

Since there is no official benchmark for the game, we'll do our tests using a GPU intensive scene from the tutorial-level which we believe that represents the average fps you'll get when playing the game.

Thief 3 is a torture test for graphics cards. All lower class cards fail to provide stable performance in this benchmark when selecting full details from the settings menu.

With this specific game and with AA and AFx0, the 6800 Ultra did quite well. The reported average fps is considered enough for smooth in-game movement without any noticeable"onscreen breaks". The X800XT did far better in this test with a total of 56fps at the highest possible resolution tested.

From what we can see in the above graph, the 6800 Ultra does not have sufficient power to run smoothly at the higher resolutions with AA and AF at 4x and 8X respectively.

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13. Colin McRae 05

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14. Ground Control II

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Ground Control 2 is an action-oriented game of tactics and warfare. As Captain Jacob Angelus of the Northern Star Alliance, you will command squads of infantry, artillery, and air power against the might of the Empire of Terra. Base building and resource-collecting are replaced with unit control and combat tactics where your knowledge of the battlefield maneuvers will make the difference in your fight against a ruthless enemy. Position your troops on hilltops for better aim or inside buildings and forests for protection as you'll need to use every inch of terrain to your advantage.

For our benchmarks, we used the highest possible settings on the first mission of the single player game and moved around the camera to get an average frame rate using fraps.

Ground Control II offers really impressive graphics without requiring much GPU power. Click on the picture above to view a screenshot from the game. Check out these excellent water effects!

The performance of both cards with the specific game and AA - AF off is evenly matched, while at the highest tested resolution, the X850XT dropped its performance by 15 fps.

With AA and AF enabled, the Aeolus asserts its dominance in this test, as one can clearly see from the above graph.

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15. Conclusion

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From our previous review on the 6800 Ultra SLI mode, we've seen what this card can do when doubled up and put under the stress tests. Throughout these pages, we've seen how this card performs as a single PCI-E card and we can surely say that the results will satisfy even the most hardcore gamer.

The AOpen Aeolus 6800 Ultra dominated in almost all benchmarks, with the exception of the 3DMark05 where the comparison rival card, the X850XT managed to achieve better results, though with minor differences. With the tested games, the Aopen Aeolus 6800 Ultra did quite well and in no case was a game rendered unplayable as the average fps never dropped to low levels, exception in the case of "Thief 3", a game which is infamous for torturing VGA cards.

The Aeolus 6800 Ultra comes with a complete retail package, containing all the software and hardware needed for the potential buyer to enjoy his graphics card right out of the box, including power cables and a DVI adapter. The package also includes seven games, five of them in "Lite" version (i.e. demo), while two of them are full version games, though the bundle is not likely to draw your attention, since it can be described as outdated. This is not a drawback, although it would be nice if the released bundles contained a collection of full version latest games. Last but not least, the package also contains the AOpen Nvidia VGA drivers, which we advise should not be used. A download of the latest official Nvidia VGA drives is recommended for optimal performance (aka updated profiles).

The noise generated by the GPU cooler is not great, but is noticeable, especially when the GPU load is increased, when the fan's rotation is likewise increased in order to keep the GPU cool. As discussed before, the heatsink is a rather simple yet effective cooler that will keep the temperature at normal levels. The metal fins located on the right side of the heatsink help the process and it's a nice addition to the cooler system.

OC capabilities are described in detail in the SLI mode review for this card, which can be found here.

One may ask, why buy a this PCI-E SLI enabled VGA adapter if not for its SLI capabilities? The answer is simple. The only PCI-E 6800 that can be found on the market is the SLI model. But whether for single card use or for future SLI investment, the 6800 Ultra is an excellent choice for games enthusiasts who are willing to sacrifice a few extra $$$ for game performance. The AOpen 6800 Ultra costs approx. US$465 at newegg.com.

Pros:
- Excellent performance in all tests
- Excellent cooling system
- Considerably low noise levels
- Great nVidia features improve image quality

Cons:
- High priced, aiming at PC games enthusiasts

 

Performance:
Overclocking:
Bundle:
Value for money: