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|
Date: |
October
22nd, 2001 |
Type: |
Review |
Supplier: |
Guillemot
|
Author: |
mayhem |
RRP: |
$199
AUS (Base Model) |
|
Testing
In order to
best judge the performance of the card a number of tests have to
be performed, both in a normal game (such as Quake 3 Arena) and
also in special benchmarkingk softwatre, for example Mad Onions
3D Mark 2000 and the newer 3D Mark 2001. We used all three of these
programs to see what these cards could do.
Test
System 1
|
Processor: |
Intel
Pentium II 450 MHz |
Motherboard: |
Giga-byte
686BX |
Memory: |
192 MB
PC100 SDRAM |
Hard Drive: |
30 GB
Seagate Barracudda 7200rpm |
Sound
Card: |
Sound
Blaster AWE 64 |
Operating
System: |
Windows
2000 Professional (SP2)
|
|
Test
System 2
|
Processor: |
AMD Duron
900 MHz |
Motherboard: |
BioStar
AMD/VIA ATA100 |
Memory: |
256 MB
PC133 SDRAM |
Hard Drive: |
20 GB
Seagate Barracudda 7200rpm |
Sound
Card: |
Sound
Blaster Live! |
Operating
System: |
Microsoft
Windows ME |
Although Test
System 1 is not top end it will give you an idea of how the cards
perform in a normal computer, not a brand new super fast Athlon
or Intel (which me may soon be able to test on also to see how performance
changes). Test
System 2 is a more modern machine, although a more budget processor
it has all the latest bits and pieces, PC133 memory and ATA100 IDE,
this should give a good indication of how the cards will do in a
more modern system.
Quake
3 Area Demo
Well the most
common tests people perform on a video card are a very popular games,
namely Quake 3 Arena, this is because it really gives a card a work
out, so who are we to differ. The testing was done on a number of
screen resolutions and textures detail levels on the DEMO 001 map,
this is mainly because this will allow you to judge and compare
these with other benchmarks done by other sites on similar graphics
cards.
Here are the
results of our tests:
Mad Onion
3D Mark 2000
"3DMark®2000
is combining DirectX®7 support with completely new graphics, it
continues to provide benchmark results that empower you to make
informed upgrade decisions by delivering game content of tomorrow
- today. As with all MadOnion.com benchmarks, 3DMark2000 has been
created in cooperation with all of the major 3D accelerator and
processor manufacturers to provide you with the best possible and
most reliable set of diagnostic tools. Also included is a completely
new demo-mode, which demonstrates some of the latest innovations
and advances that real-time 3D graphics can now offer. Using Remedy
Entertainment's acclaimed MAX-FX Technology™, 3DMark2000 demonstrates
how to maximize your 3D gaming performance by using real-world gaming
technology to test your system's true game performance abilities."
- MadOnion.com
|
Duron
900
|
Pentium
II 450
|
4000XT
|
4500
|
4000XT
|
4500
|
Platform
|
Internal
|
|
Internal
|
Internal
|
3D
Mark Result (3D Marks)
|
1063
|
1050
|
1762
|
1763
|
CPU
Speed (CPU 3D Marks)
|
44
|
43
|
96
|
97
|
Game
1 - Helicopter - Low (FPS)
|
18.6
|
18.4
|
37.0
|
|
Game
1 - Helicopter - Medium (FPS)
|
10.2
|
10.2
|
23.1
|
23.1
|
Game
1 - Helicopter - High (FPS)
|
3.3
|
3.2
|
10.3
|
10.3
|
Game
2 - Adventure - Low (FPS)
|
35.6
|
34.9
|
45.0
|
45.1
|
Game
2 - Adventure - Medium (FPS)
|
14.0
|
13.8
|
20.3
|
20.4
|
Game
2 - Adventure - High (FPS)
|
6.9
|
6.9
|
11.3
|
11.3
|
Fill
Rate (Single-Texturing) (M Triangles/s)
|
229.2
|
348.7
|
229.3
|
348.3
|
Fill
Rate (Multi-Texturing) (M Triangles/s)
|
229.2
|
348.7
|
229.2
|
348.1
|
High
Polygon Count (1 Light) (K Triangles/s)
|
331
|
333
|
1393
|
1498
|
High
Polygon Count (4 Lights) (K Triangles/s)
|
331
|
334
|
893
|
934
|
High
Polygon Count (8 Lights) (K Triangles/s)
|
329
|
332
|
630
|
638
|
8MB
Texture Rendering Speed (FPS)
|
248.7
|
347.3
|
250.6
|
349.4
|
16MB
Texture Rendering Speed (FPS)
|
221.7
|
230.1
|
205.3
|
208
|
32MB
Texture Rendering Speed (FPS)
|
56.3
|
128.5
|
110.4
|
110.8
|
64MB
Texture Rendering Speed (FPS)
|
N/A
|
0.4
|
N/A
|
2.8
|
Bump
Mapping (Emboxx, 3-pass) (FPS)
|
62.6
|
62.1
|
126.7
|
147.3
|
Bump
Mapping (Emboxx, 2-pass) (FPS)
|
91.0
|
90.7
|
128.8
|
195.4
|
Bump
Mapping (Emboxx, 1-pass) (FPS)
|
139.8
|
165.6
|
140.3
|
213.3
|
Bump
Mapping (Environment) (FPS)
|
56.6
|
85.0
|
57.2
|
85.4
|
Mad Onion
3D Mark 2001
"3DMark®2001
is the third, and latest installment in the popular 3DMark series.
By combining DirectX®8 support with completely new graphics, it
continues to provide benchmark results that empower you to make
informed hardware assessments. As with all MadOnion.com internet-enabled
benchmarks, 3DMark2001 has been created in cooperation with the
major 3D accelerator and processor manufacturers to provide you
with the best possible and most reliable set of diagnostic tools.
We’ve also included a completely new demo-mode, which demonstrates
some of the latest innovations and advances that real-time 3D Graphics
can offer! Using Remedy Entertainment's acclaimed MAX-FX Technology™,
3DMark2001 demonstrates how to maximize your 3D gaming performance
by using real-world gaming technology to test your system's true
game performance abilities." - MadOnion.com
|
Duron
900
|
Pentium
II 450
|
4000XT
|
4500
|
4000XT
|
4500
|
3D
Mark Score
|
417
|
658
|
603
|
599
|
Game
1 - Car Chase - Low (FPS)
|
0.7
|
6.3
|
8.5
|
8.5
|
Game
1 - Car Chase - High (FPS)
|
0.4
|
1.8
|
1.8
|
1.8
|
Game
2 - Dragothic - Low (FPS)
|
8.7
|
14.5
|
7.3
|
7.4
|
Game
2 - Dragothic - High (FPS)
|
0.5
|
5.4
|
3.2
|
3.2
|
Game
3 - Lobby - Low (FPS)
|
18.0
|
18.1
|
20.8
|
20.8
|
Game
3 - Lobby - High (FPS)
|
6.3
|
6.3
|
6.9
|
6.6
|
Game
4 - Nature (FPS)
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
Fill
Rate (Single - Texturing) (MTexels/s)
|
229.0
|
348.4
|
229.1
|
348.3
|
Fill
Rate (Multi - Texturing) (MTexels/s)
|
225.8
|
343.2
|
N/A
|
343.3
|
High
Polygon Count (1 Light) (MTexels/s)
|
2.8
|
2.7
|
1.1
|
1.3
|
High
Polygon Count (8 Lights) (MTexels/s)
|
1.2
|
1.2
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
Environment
Bump Mapping (FPS)
|
29.4
|
30.6
|
28.9
|
28.8
|
DOT3
Bump Mapping(FPS)
|
21.6
|
21.5
|
24.6
|
37.5
|
Vertex
Shader (FPS)
|
2.7
|
2.8
|
3.1
|
3.1
|
Pixel
Shader (FPS)
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
Point
Sprites (MSprites/s)
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
0.4
|
0.4
|
Below are the
results of the 3D Mark 2000 and 3D Mark 2001 tests on both the systems:
Village
Mark v1.17
This simple
benchmark program is freely available from
www.powervr.com, and lets you run throught a Village scene with
any number of detail and benchmarking options. Mainly we just wanted
to see what sort of Frames Per Second these two cards would get,
you can see our results below:
Conclusion
On all the tests
both cards seemed to perform rather head to head, the drivers that
were used are the default provided on the CD-ROM that is packaged
with the video cards, an increase in performance is gained by downloading
and installing the latest versions of the drivers from the Hercules
website. Both cards were extremely easy to setup in both WinME and
Win2k which is always an added bonus, especially since Win2k is
rather picky with drivers. For those of you who run Microsofts latest
Operating System Windows XP drivers will be released this week on
the 25th of October.
If you have
an older system with a 2x AGP similar to the Pentium II system used
in this review, then your better off saving some money for more
memory (which is rather cheap at the moment) and using the 3D Prophet
4000XT, but for more high end systems the 3D Prophet 4500 provides
the power for today's games with the added benefit of the TV-Out.
The overall outcome brings both cards out at close paces, but with
a new Athlon Gigahertz system with Double Data Rate Memory your
best choosing the 4500 if possible.
One of the
only downsides to these cards is the lack of overclockability, if
overclocking were more possible on these cards than I think they
would have a great performance increase, its good to see a second
choice along side today's GeForce chipset based cards, this leaves
us waiting to see what the Kryo III might have in store for us if
it is to be released.
A big thanks
must go out to Jean-Francois Galle from Guillemot Australian for
supplying us with this 3D Prophet 4000XT. To find out more information
on the range of products that Hercules have then please visit their
website, au.hercules.com.
Score:
8.5 / 10
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