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The Hothardware Test System & Testing
Methodology |
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Enter the Dragon! |
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COMMON HARDWARE:
Soyo
SY-KT400
DRAGON Ultra (AGP 8X)
AMD Athlon XP 2200+
512MB Corsair PC3200 (CAS 2)
On-Board Sound
Western Digital 7200RPM ATA100 20GB HD
Creative Labs 52x CD-ROM
Standard Floppy Drive
Windows XP Professional SP1 (DirectX 8.1)
Intel Chipset Drivers
Intel Application Accelerator v2.2
NVIDIA Detonators v41.03
VIDEO CARDS TESTED:
Asus V9280S Geforce 4 Ti 4200
AGP8x (128MB)
Asus V8420 Deluxe Geforce
4 Ti 4200 AGP4x (128MB)
Chaintech Geforce 4 Ti 4600 AGP4x (128MB) |
Methodology:
Due to the fact that we have seen significant
variations in benchmark scores from one site to the
next, we feel it is necessary to explain exactly how
we configure each test system before running any
benchmarks. We chose to test these video boards on the
Soyo SY-KT400 DRAGON Ultra (supports AGP8X), with an
AMD Athlon XP 2200+. The first thing we did when
configuring this system was enter the BIOS and change
all the settings to their optimal values. We set
the Memory CAS Latency and other memory timings to
2-2-5-2, and ran the memory at DDR333(PC2700). The
hard drive was then formatted, and Windows XP
Professional w/ SP1 was installed. After the Windows
installation was complete, we installed the latest
chipset drivers. Then we installed all of the
necessary drivers for the rest of our components.
Auto-Updating and System Restore were also disabled,
and then we set up a 512MB permanent page file.
Lastly, we set Windows XPs Visual Effects to "best
performance", installed all of the benchmarking
software, defragged the hard drive and ran all of the
tests at the CPU's default clock speed. |
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DirectX 8 Benchmarks with 3DMark 2001SE (Build
330) |
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MadOnion's Flagship |
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In the first round of tests, we brought out one of our
favorite Direct X 8 benchmarking applications,
FutureMarks 3DMark 2001SE. With all other
settings remaining at their defaults, we ran benchmarks at
three of the more common resolutions that game players can
be expected to be using: 1024x768, 1280x1024, and
1600x1200, all at 32-bit color depth. The results
are as follows:
I think it's fair to say
that the Asus V9280S lived up to initial expectations.
It fell in right between the previous Geforce 4 Ti 4200
offering from Asus, but fell a bit short of the big daddy
GF4 Ti 4600. The difference was very slight at the
lower resolutions, however the gap widened when we reached
1600x1200. What should be noted here, is that the
difference between the stock scores for the V9280S and the
V8420, is due solely to the increase in core and memory
clock speeds, and almost certainly nothing to do
whatsoever with the increased bandwidth of AGP 3.0.
In fact, when we compare the V9280S using AGP8x to the
V8420, whose core and memory clock speeds were raised to
match, we see that the V8420 won each matchup. In
the final test, the overclocked V8420 even beat the
overclocked scores for the V9280S.
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Some real world results with Remedy's Max Payne |
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Bullet Time is so cool! |
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Another DirectX benchmarking tool we like to use in our
reviews is Remedy's Max Payne. Using the
benchmarking routine that can be found on
http://www.3dcenter.de,
we watched the ending of the game, while keeping an eye on
the frames per second. Finally, right at the end, we
took one last reading and compared the respective cards
results.
The V9280S stayed the
same course, at least with DirectX benchmarking. It
constantly remained a frame or two faster than the other
Ti 4200, at least at stock speeds. When the clock
speeds were raised on the V8420, the two cards were, for
the most part, neck and neck. A difference of half
of a frame per second separated the two cards in each
test. What I am saying here is that two GF4 Ti4200
cards at the same clock speeds, one using AGP4x and the
other AGP8x, are producing the same results.
Overclocking the V9280S produced frame rates that were
either slightly better than or just below the Geforce 4 Ti
4600 card.
More gaming scores ahead |