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You may have
noticed here at HotHardware, that there are two different
test beds on which we test graphics cards. One setup
is a 1Ghz. Pentium III machine and the other is a 1.5GHz.
Pentium 4 platform. This way between the two, you
should get a good idea of relative performance from the mid
range to high end gaming platforms. In this review we
went with the P4 setup.
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HotHardware's Test Setup |
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Intel's Flagship |
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Absolute
MORPHEUS GeForce3 64MB AGP Graphics Card
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Visiontek GeForce3 64MB AGP
Graphics Card
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nVidia GeForce2 Ultra 64MB
AGP Graphics Card
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Intel Pentium 4 1.5GHz.
Processor
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Abit TH7-RAID Pentium 4
Motherboard
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256MB of Samsung PC800
RAMBUS DRDRAM,
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Thermaltake Indigo Orb P4
CPU Cooler -
Thanks
Plycon!
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IBM DTLA307030 30Gig ATA100
7200 RPM Hard Drive
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Sound Blaster Live Sound
Card,
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Kenwood True-X 72X CD
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WindowsME
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Direct X 8.0 and nVidia
reference drivers version 12.41
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Intel chipset drivers
version 2.90
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Overclocking The MORPHEUS |
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Our best performer
yet!! |
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First things first, we decided to setup the perennial stress
test for the MORPHEUS GeForce3. That being of course,
our battery of overclocking tests. To accomplish this
with the current 12.41 revision of the Detonator 4 drivers,
one has to copy over the "nvcpl.dll" from an earlier version
(say the 10.80 version) in your /Windows/System directory.
Then just apply the
"Coobits" registry tweak and you are off to the races,
literally.
Click image
for full view
The folks at 3D
Power must have worked a little magic with the application
of those coolers you saw earlier on here in our review.
We were able to hit a stable 235MHz. core and 535MHz. memory
clock. Our definition of stable is the ability for the
card to make it through a pass of 3DMark 2001 at default
setting and a Quake3 Crusher Time Demo run, without visual
artifacts or locking up. Stability over hours of game
play may be different however and as always, your mileage
may differ.
We'll see how
this boost in clock speed affects our frame rates, in the
pages to follow. So, stick with us here.
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Benchmarks / Comparisons |
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A 3DMark 2001
Shoot-Out |
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MadOnion's
3DMark 2001 (the defacto standard Direct 3D Benchmarking
tool) was fired up as always, to get a gauge for relative
performance versus the competition. In this test we
pitted the MORPHEUS up against the
Visiontek GeForce3.
3DMark No AA
MORPHEUS
3DMark NO AA Visiontek
3DMark 4X AA
MORPHEUS
3DMark 4X AA Visiontek
In the top
graphs you'll see we ran both cards at 800X600, 1024X768 and
1600X1200 all in 32bit color. In addition, we ran them
in both "Hardware T&L" and "Pure Hardware T&L", the latter
in which the GeForce3 handles all T&L functions on the GPU.
Then we ran a
Pure Hardware T&L test with 4X AA, 32 bit color at 800X600
and 1024X768 resolutions. As you can see in all the
test scores, the Vistontek card noses in ahead of the
MORPHEUS. However, the margin of lead is small and
within test to test variances. Having said this,
3DMark's numbers are typically very stable and repeatable.
In the pages
ahead, you'll note that the tables turn slightly in favor of
the MORPHEUS. Read on...
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Quake 3 Time Demo and
Overclocked Scores |
