Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 64MB - KYRO II (6/15)

Testsystems

To eliminate the processor's influence on the results, I assembled two very fast systems, one rig each by Intel and AMD. The Pentium4 rig is based on an Intel reference system, while the AMD Thunderbird 1200 got to run in an ASUS A7M266 board, based on AMD's 760 chipset.

Note: RIVA Station does not test processors. Nonetheless, a comparison of these two architecture is bound to be interesting to more than just a few. Keep one thing in mind though: A Pentium4 would reach higher scores on an ASUS board tweaked for performance than it did on Intel's "conservative" reference system made for total stability. This is borne out by the fact that, while the P4 system ran 100% stable, the AMD 760 system would crash frequently even with the most conservative memory timings. MBTR would not complete a single benchmark run on the AMD system with a RADEON, and even with the two GeForce 2 boards the AMD system remained "moody" and was prone to crashing. The main cause for this "moodiness" is most likely the relative youth of the AMD 761 chipset. Hopefully stability will increase over time.

 
CPU Intel Pentium 4 1500MHz AMD Athlon 1200 MHz
Mainboard Intel D850GB ASUS A7M266
Chipset Intel i850 AMD-761 (DDR-266)
FSB 133 MHz 133 MHz
AGP-Clock 66 MHz 66 MHz
Memory 256MB PC-800 256MB DDR-266
HD Seagate 12GB ST313021A DMA 66 Seagate 12GB ST313021A DMA 66
OS Windows 98SE - DX 8.0a Windows 98SE - DX 8.0a
Misc 10MBit Netzwork card (Realtek) 10MBit Netzwork card (Realtek)

Drivers of tested cards:

  • Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 64MB - Hercules Beta v7.56
  • NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX - NVIDIA Reference Drivers v6.50
  • NVIDIA GeForce 2 GTS - NVIDIA Reference Drivers v6.50
  • ATi RADEON - v 4.13.7093

All tests were run under Windows98SE with DirectX 8.0a. The other cards tested were the ASUS AGP V7100 (GeForce 2 MX, 128Bit SDRAM - 175/166MHz), the ASUS AGP V7700 Pure (GeForce 2 GTS - 128bit DDR SGRAM - 200/166(333) MHz) and the ATi RADEON 32MB DDR (128bit DDR SGRAM - 166/166(333) MHz).

The Benchmarks

For the tests I used the usual RS benchmark suite in a slightly different version:

  • Evolva - DirectX 7 game with T&L Support
  • MDK2 - OpenGL with HW Lightning
  • Quake3 - OpenGL with HW Transformation Support
  • Aquanox Aquamark - DirectX 8 game with T&L und DX8 Features
  • Mercedes Benz Truck Racing - DirectX 7 game without HW T&L
  • 3DMark 2000 - Synthetic DirectX 7 benchmark

These benchmarks should cover the entire spectrum of hardware support today's games offer. I decided against the use of 3DMark2001, since the results are currently quite meaningless for DirectX 8 boards. Aquanox/Aquamark seems much better suited to give an impression of performance in a DirectX 8 game.

Now for the detailed, blow-by-blow results:

Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 64MB - KYRO II

The 3D Prophet 4500

Benchmarks

Additional Tests

Summary & Rating

German Language

Language

English Language

Copyright: 09.04.2001 -   RIVA Station 2001 - Lars Weinand
No Copy without Permission!

Translation by Benjamin Kraft

URL of this Article: www.rivastation.com/3dprophet4500-64mb_e.htm - If you want to link to it, please use this URL! :-)

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