G80: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX

Anisotropic Filtering Quality 1

We have previously taken NVIDIA to task for its image quality. In the GeForce 6 and GeForce 7-series, NVIDIA's anisotropic filtering has been truly awful for its high end cards, and ATI has given a thorough beating to NVIDIA in the image quality department since the launch of Radeon X1000-series. With the GeForce 8800-series, this has changed.

We left NVIDIA's default image quality set at the default on the GeForce 8800 GTX a roll out against the High Quality AF on the X1950 and the default image quality on the 7950 in Oblivion. Here was what we found.

Here we see a major improvement in NVIDIA image quality at the default settings. It's clear to see that the NVIDIA default quality is now at the very least equal to the High Quality filtering in ATI's drivers. The difference from the default GeForce 7950 GX2 settings is blatant - there is horrid moire in the middle of the picture on the walkway flagstones. Picking between the GeForce 8800 GTX and the Radeon X1950 XTX is a difficult task though.

We are pleased to see that NVIDIA has finally stepped up and provided high-end graphics card buyers with the kind of image quality that they should rightfully expect - and about time, too.