NVIDIA GeForce DDR - CPU scalability

What about CPU scalability of GeForce on fast CPU´s? And how is it performing on low power CPU´s? Can Hardware T&L calculations help to push 'old' CPU´s? You can read a lot marketing hypes that pomises great performance andon the other hand some sceptic voices out there. Hmmm... the truth will be somewhere in the middle of this - as ever. But where the middle is, that depends on the games you play and the 3D API the games use.

RIVA Station tested a GeForce DDR reference card and a Guillemot Maxi Gamer Xentor 32 with TNT2 Ultra (175/183 - one of the fastest out there) on different CPU´s. The systems were:

  • AMD K6-2 350MHz on a Tekram P5M3-A+ (VIA MVP3), 128MB RAM

  • Intel Celeron 300A (300MHz) on Tekram P6BX-A, 128MB RAM

  • Intel Pentium III 500MHz om Tekram P6BX-A, 128MB RAM

  • Intel Coppermine Pentium III running at 750/100 MHz, Tekram P6BX-A, 128MB RAM

I used NVIDIA reference drivers v2.08 for the Xentor 32 and v3.53 NVIDIA drivers for the GeForce. v2.08 are a bit faster than v3.53 so there´s a bit advantage for the Xentor. But on the other hand, GeForce does´nt run on v2.08. So this seems to be fair :-)

Now let´s go to the benchmarks. The tables are pretty full but data visualization is an own science!

GL Quake1

A bit old today but great to see the peaks of a graphics card:

DEMO 1

Quake1 Demo1

A TNT2 card is allready very fast here when you use fast CPU´s. But Celeron with GeForce can reach a PIII 500 using a TNT2 at 800x600 (green). Thanks to the high fillrate GeForce is faster at higher resolutions on all CPU´s.

Some words about 1600x1200. I think this resolution is pretty theoretical. Who really wants to play in such a high resolution (today)? There are enough real live situations where you can test the performance of a card. You won´t have to choose 1600x1200 for it. Nevertheless, I made 1600x1200 runs on the fast CPU´s.

BIGASS

BIGASS needs a bit more CPU Power than DEMO1

Quake1 Bigass

Here you can see smaller differences than in DEMO1. But GeForce makes a performance hit on all CPU´s. But!!! A K6-2 350 with GeForce is 20% faster than with TNT2. The problem is: These 20% are only 7FPS!! But with a more FPU capable Celeron you get much better profit.

Copyright: RIVA Station 1999 - Lars Weinand
No Copy without Permission!

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