3DMark05 (continued)

3DMark's remaining synthetic benchmarks give us a split result. The 6800 GS wins out in the pixel shader test, but the ATI cards are both faster in the vertex shader test. In fact, the X1600 XT has finally found a place where it excels; it beats out the Radeon X1800 XL and the GeForce 7800 GTX in the vertex shader tests. This robust vertex throughput may help explain the X1600 XT's ability to keep up with the Radeon X800 XL and GeForce 6800 GS in 3DMark05's three game tests.