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HotHardware Test System |
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AthlonXP All the
Way!! |
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A Few Words About The Benchmarks:
To help our readers understand how we achieved the scores
that we did, we felt it necessary to explain our testing methods. First we installed the latest version of
Detonator 4.0 drivers available from the nVidia website.
We set the Direct X drivers for Blend and disable
V-sync for both DirectX and OpenGL. The remainder
of the driver settings were left at their defaults.
All overclocking was done using the Coolbits registry
tweak. By default,
Windows XP loads the desktop with the best visual
appearance settings, which could adversely affect the
benchmarks. To prevent this, we set the
desktop settings for "best performance"
To give a frame of reference, we compared the various
benchmarks to a GeForce4 Ti4600 to show how the
enhancements Abit made to the Siluro Ti4200 with OTES
compared to the best nVidia currently has to offer.
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Abit
Siluro GeForce4 Ti4200/64MB OTES - 275/550
eVGA
GeForce4 Ti4600/128MB - 300/650
Abit KX7-333R
Motherboard
AMD AthlonXP
2000+.
512MB Geil(2.5-3-3)
1 IBM GXP 60 7200RPM
40GB HD
Creative 52X CD-ROM
Standard Floppy Drive
Windows XP Professional
SP-1
DirectX 8.1
Detonator 40.72
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Benchmarking With 3DMark2001SE (Build 330) |
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The DirectX
Approach. |
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To get things
going, we'll start off with some DirectX testing. One
of our favorite tools for assessing a card's DirectX
performance is MadOnion's 3DMark2001SE. In this round
of tests we included scores from a GeForce4 Ti4600 as well
as some overclocking scores for the Siluro.
At 1024x768, the
Siluro wasn't too far behind the performance of the Ti4600
reference card. Once we kicked the Ti4200 into
overdrive it closed in fast on the Ti4600, narrowing the gap
from roughly 534 points to a mere 172 point deficit.
With a little overclocking, the Siluro with OTES offers
performance comparable to the more expensive Ti4600, but
will this continue as we increase the resolution?
Let's see.
Once again the
Ti4200 reacted nicely to a dose of overclocking, sending its
score back into the Ti4600's territory. The Siluro
enjoyed an additional 397 points and narrowed the lead of
the Ti4600 to 266 points. Will the same type of gains
be seen at 1600x1200?
Even at
a resolution of 1600x1200, the Siluro Ti4200 kept it tight
with the Ti4600 comparison card. While the gap widened
versus the two previous tests, the Siluro was still capable
of staying in the shadows of the more powerful card.
In the end, the Siluro added an additional 7% by
overclocking,
and kept a distance of 290 points from the Ti4600
card.
From what
we are seeing here so far, the Siluro with OTES is shaping
up to be quite a value with performance close to a more
powerful Ti4600.
Now let's take a look at DirectX gaming performance and see
if the trend continues.
DirectX Benchmarking with Comanche 4 & UT2003 |