Conclusion:
The NVIDIA TNT2 is a great performer and a lot
faster in most cases than its predecessor TNT. Only in most cases beacause the system CPU
is an important part here. Some games need a lot CPU power for internal calculations or
complex graphics. So the CPU canīt feed the graphic card enough. Kingpin is an example
for that. But you can see in other benchmarks like incoming that the TNT2 has a much
higher data throughput than the TNT. There are only small falloffs in 3DMARK99 MAX if you
choose a higher resolution. Also True Color rendering is now very fast compared to TNT.
The drivers are not final yet and you can hear of much newer drivers than Detonator v1.20.
So I think weīll see another increase of performance soon. But the drivers are OK to
compare the new TNT2 with the TNT. This is only a preview. And with higher clockspeed
weīll see higher values soon... donīt forget: There is also an Ultra-Version of the TNT2
clocked at 150MHz core and 166MHz mem...!
I must say that itīs time that game developers
support the CPU 3D extensions like intels Streaming SIMD or AMDīs 3DNow! in their current
games. The benchmarks show that the CPU is a bottleneck and this would help to show the
real performance ot the TNT2. But another thing is that there is still no real 3DNow!
support in the NVIDIA drivers. But NVIDIA stated that they are working with AMD to get a
good 3DNow! support. The PIII extensions are allready supported but here are no real games
out yet to test that.
I think the TNT2 will take a large advantage of that. More than the former TNT.
CPU-Dependence - A try to
explain
The CPU calculates the 3D data of a scene in a
wireframe model (Geometry Setup).This data is transfered to the graphics card. Now the
card adds colors and textures and shows the scene very fast on the screen.... there is a
lot more like filtering etc but this is the principle.
In a model view, you can compare it with an car engine. The graphics chip is the
engine and the CPU a fuel pump (Donīt take this too serious...<g>). If the engine
should be fast with a small amount of fuel it will get problems when it gets too much
fuel. The engine can do many things by itself but it can not take advantages of a larger
amount of fuel.
But if you can have another engine. The more fuel it gets, the faster ist is. But
than you can get the problem that the fuel pump canīt deliver enough fuel...
You must imagine that we have CPU clockrate from 300MHz to 550 MHz at the moment
and a lot faster soon - with and without 3D extensions.
Ok, a weird model but you can say that TNT2 is a chip like the last example. So I
think it will take a huge advantage of the new CPU extensions. And the next step is on the
horizon: A Chip with Geometry calculation onboard. The CPU is no longer needed for the
calculation of the 3D scene (Geometry setup) on those cards.
This is only a try to give an easy explanation of all
this.... |
The ASUS card V3800TVR looks very solid and
is overwhelmed with features. A review of these features like the 3D glasses VR-100 and
the Video-IN and OUT features will come very soon! The TNT2 does a great job at high
resolutions and 32Bit rendering and can take advantage of the new CPUīs like AMD K-7 and
Pentium III. NVIDIA did a good job here. An ideal compromise between future safe and great
performance with the current CPUs.
Questions? Opinion? ---> Discussion Board
Update 04.05.99: More benchmark
results with a NVIDIA TNT2 ULTRA reference card and newest NVIDIA TNT2 drivers can be
found here.
RIVA Station 1999 - Lars 'Borsti' Weinand |
