Our OpenGL testing is wrapped up with Quake III Arena benchmarks, stressing different aspects of system performance. We have tested under Normal and Maximum Quality settings. Also notice that we have added the i815E system to reflect the scores of the new performance platform.

Desktop color depth is 16-bit; V-sync is turned off on all tests, and scores reflect performance with sound on.

Just as we saw in the RADEON 64MB Guide, both ATI cards are beat decisively under 16-bit conditions, except at 640x480. The 16-bit alpha-blending bug that we reported earlier is still present, and likely will not be fixed. According to ATI, one inevitable downside to optimizing 32-bit performance is sacrificing 16-bit. Although we don't think the terrible 16-bit quality is what they had in mind, we can only hope ATI's engineers will fix this rendering faux pas.