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NVIDIA TNT2 ULTRA vs. TNT

 

In the following you can see some real-life benchmarks made with a NVIDIA TNT2 ULTRA reference card. The card runs at 150MHz coreclock and 183MHz memclock. It is equiped with 32MB SDRAM. IŽve added values of a STB Velocity 4400 TNT card running with Detonator v1.20 for comparsion. The TNT2 ULTRA ran with NVIDIA TNT2 ULTRA drivers v1.73.

TNT2 Ultra?

What is TNT2 ULTRA? NVIDIA produces only one TNT2. But the chips get tested and ordered as TNT2 or TNT2 ULTRA. Normal TNT2Žs run with 125MHz core clock and TNT2 ULTRAŽs with 150MHzor more. But thereŽs also a difference in the RAM modules. It runs with 183MHz or more on ULTRA cards. But this power has its price. Such fast memory modules are rare and expensive.

TNT2 ULTRA reference card

The testsystem was an Intel Pentium II 450MHz CPU running on an ASUS P2-B Mainboard, 128MB SDRAM (7ns).

GL-Quake

OpenGL
Timedemo 1
800x600 - 16

fps
Velocity 4400 (TNT) 69,2
TNT2 Ultra 150/183 126,7
Bigass
800x600 - 16

fps
Velocity 4400 (TNT) 67,2
TNT2 Ultra 150/183 86,0
Timedemo
1024x768 - 16

fps
Velocity 4400 (TNT) 42,4
TNT2 Ultra 150/183 88,0
Bigass
1024x768 - 16

fps
Velocity 4400 (TNT) 42,1
TNT2 Ultra 150/183 79,0
Kommentar  
The performance of the TNT2 Ultra is phenomenal. It is double fast
than the TNT in timedemo1. It drops only in Bigass at 1024x768
below 80fps... but not much.

 

Quake2

OpenGL
Massive
800x600 - 16

fps
Velocity 4400 (TNT) 53,1
TNT2 Ultra 150/183 73,8
Crusher
800x600 - 16

fps
Velocity 4400 (TNT) 37,5
TNT2 Ultra 150/183 48,6
Massive
1024x768 - 16

fps
Velocity 4400 (TNT) 36,5
TNT2 Ultra 150/183 64,9
Crusher
1024x768 - 16

fps
Velocity 4400 (TNT) 30,1
TNT2 Ultra 150/183 47,3
Kommentar  
The lead of the TNT2 ULTRA is still impressive. I was very
surprised to see such a large difference in the crusher-demo. This
demo is very CPU dependent so I didŽnt expect to see a difference
of more than 10 fps. The 47,6 fps at 1024x768-16 are impressive.

 

Incoming

Direct 3D
Settings:
V-Sync OFF
800x600 - 16

fps
Velocity 4400 (TNT) 77,54
TNT2 Ultra 150/183 103,97
1024x768 - 16

fps
Velocity 4400 (TNT) 53,24
TNT2 Ultra 150/183 101,54
800x600 - 32

fps
Velocity 4400 (TNT) 48,25
TNT2 Ultra 150/183 97,40
1024x768 - 32

fps
Velocity 4400 (TNT) 31,50
TNT2 Ultra 150/183 72,16
Kommentar  
Except of 800x600-16 you can see the TNT2 ULTRA double fast than
the Velocity 4400. The TNT2 ULTRA runs at 1024x768 with 32Bit
colors with more than 72 fps! At 800x600-32 you have even 97!

 

Kingpin

OpenGL
Settings:
Big
800x600 - 16

fps
Velocity 4400 (TNT) 35,2
TNT2 Ultra 150/183 38,9
1024x768 - 16

fps
Velocity 4400 (TNT) 30,1
TNT2 Ultra 150/183 38,1
800x600 - 32

fps
Velocity 4400 (TNT) 32,4
TNT2 Ultra 150/183 37,8
1024x768 - 32

fps
Velocity 4400 (TNT) 23,3
TNT2 Ultra 150/183 34,9
Kommentar  
Kingpin is running as expected. The difference is not very large.
The system CPU is the bottleneck here. But the falloff from
800x600-16 to 1024x768-32 is only 4fps. And the difference to the
TNT in the large 32 Bit resolution is more than 10fps.

In conclusion I can only say: TNT2 Rocks! This is a whole other world than with the V3800 preview. But this card ran with the NVIDIA Detonator v1.20 drivers. So weŽll see this card perform
better very soon. The new TNT2 ULTRA drivers do a great job. The difference of the TNT2 ULTRA to the TNT is very clear. The most impressive thing is the low falloff at 32Bit colordepth.

RIVA Station 1999 - Lars Weinand
 

NVIDIA TNT2 ULTRA vs. TNT