System setup and notes
Here's a quick rundown of the test system should you wish to compare benchmark results with your own.
- System 1
- Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz (133FSB) CPU
- VIA P4B Ultra P4X400 (8x AGP) Motherboard run in DDR333 mode
- 512MB (2 x 256) PC3200 memory at 166MHz 2-5-2-2 timings
- Thermaltake high-performance cooler
- IBM 61.4GB Hard drive
- Pioneer 105 DVD/RW
- System 2
- AMD XP2700+ CPU (2.16GHz / 166FSB)
- MSI K7N2 nForce2 motherboard (8x AGP) run synchronously at DDR333
- 512MB (2 x 256MB) PC3200 memory in dual-channel mode 2-5-2-2 timings
- Taisol 760 cooler
- IBM 61.4GB Hard Drive
- Pioneer 105 DVD/RW
Video Cards
- ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200-8X OTES
- Albatron Ti4280P VGA DVI-I & TV-out
- Albatron Ti4200P TURBO + VGA DVI-I & TV-out
- Asus 128MB 8x AGP
- Chaintech S.E 128MB 8x AGP
- Creative TI4200 64MB 4x AGP
- Gainward GeForce4™ PowerPack! 128MB 8x 650XP VIVO
- Gainward GeForce4™ PowerPack! Ultra/750-8X XP
- Leadtek Winfast A280 LE TDH AGP MyVIVO
- MSI Ti4200-8X VIVO AGP
- PNY 128MB 8x AGP
- X-Micro 128MB 8x AGP
Software
- Windows XP Professional Build 2600.xpclient.010817-1148
- VIA Hyperion 4-in-1s
- nForce 1.13 drivers
- Detonator 41.09 drivers
- Rivatuner
- 3DMark 2001SE
- UT2003 Demo
- Comanche 4 benchmark
- Serious Sam 2 Demo
Notes
12 cards over 2 high-end systems from AMD and Intel respectively. All benchmarks will be run at 1024x768, 1280x1024 (or 1280x960 for UT2003), and 1600x1200 respectively. Colour depth is set to 32 bits. As we have a Creative card with 'only' 64MB of RAM on-board, it will be interesting to see if it's disadvantaged as we scale the resolution ladder. In the main the cards run at the same basic speed of 250/513 (core/mem) respectively but some buck this trend by offering hardwired speeds in excess of default.
It will also be interesting to see just how each card runs on either system. Is Intel the faster solution for gaming or is it AMD ?. AMD have finally gotten 166FSB processors into the marketplace so it should provide stiff competition for the 2.8GHz Intel offering.
I had no problem in installing or running any card in either machine. The 8x AGP problem that arose with some cards does not seem to be present here. Rivatuner identified each card correctly as 8x AGP compliant. The question was whether the faster transfer speed of 2.1GB/s would give us a real world performance increase over the previous 4x standard ?.
