A
completely rewritten 3D engine based on DirectX8 encompasses many visual effects
such as volumetric Nebulae (gas clouds) that have a real impact in the game (you
can hide in them), many new engine, shield, weapon and explosion effects.
Objects cast real dynamic 3D shadows! Dynamic DP3 bump mapping allows a
previously unseen level of detail.
Again,
don't be surprised that performance at stock speeds is about the same -
each board should perform pretty much on par with each other. Overclocked
and we get a nice 10fps boost.
 Unreal Tournament
2003 |
Source:
Epic |
|
Unreal
Tournament 2003 is the sequel to 1999's multiple 'Game of the Year' award
winner. It uses the very latest Unreal Engine technology - where graphics, sound
and game play are taken beyond the bleeding edge. Unreal Tournament 2003 employs
the use of Vertex as well as Pixel Shaders and it's recommended that you use a
DirectX 8 videocard to get the most out of the game.
The
Gigabyte 8KNXP Ultra-64 is great for those of you who want to sneak in a bit of
gaming while at work too. ;-)
Conclusions
With the 8KNXP Ultra-64, Gigabyte has a
very interesting alternative for workstation users. While the board is equipped
with the i875P Northbridge, Gigabyte pairs it up with the more advanced Intel
6300ESB (Hance Rapids) Southbridge instead of the ICH5/ICH5R.
This is important because it gives users the choice of
using Pentium 4 processors with the i875P, while having the benefits of 64
bit PCI compatibility! The two PCI-X slots on the Gigabyte 8KNXP Ultra-64 both
support 3.3V 64bit PCI devices that run at 66 MHz.
In a workstation/server environment, 64bit PCI devices
give their users the extra bandwidth needed for high bandwidth hardware. For
example, if the onboard Adaptec AIC 7902W Ultra/320 SCSI controller were to run
on the PCI bus, it would completely bottleneck the system. With PCI-X, even if
the onboard SCSI controller is running at full speed, there's plenty of
bandwidth remaninig for the other PCI devices.
From the benchmarks we ran, the Gigabyte 8KNXP
Ultra-64 performs virtually identical to all other i875P based motherboards.
This is expected as the test CPU and chipset are identical as well. There's not
much to complain about, other than the relatively high price tag brought forth by
the inclusion of Hance Rapids and onboard Adaptec SCSI. At $488 CDN ($350 US), the Gigabyte 8KNXP
Ultra-64 is certainly a workstation solution that provides a compelling range of
high-end features for the desktop.
RSS Newsletter
