The Great and Last AGP Graphics Card Roundup - ATI vs. nVidia
Test System Setup
Processor(s): Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz (800MHz FSB)
Motherboard(s): Gigabyte 8IPE1000 Pro 2
Memory: 2 X 512MB Geil PC3200 2-2-2-5 Platinum (Supplied by Geil USA)
Hard Disk(s): Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000 RPM SATA (Supplied by Western Digital)
Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP1
It's been a while since we have been forced to pull an AGP board out of the cabinet but we didn't have much choice this time around as you would assume. We are going to be looking at the performance of the graphics cards here today from both nVidia and ATI with the cards we have mentioned in the previous pages.
We will be testing the cards in our normal array of benchmarks including our synthetic tests and real world tests and we'll have a quick look at the performance of the cards when we start to crank up the AA and AF. The ATI Radeon AGP cards were tested using the Catalyst 4.4 drivers while the nVidia GeForce AGP cards were tested using 71.89 Forceware drivers.
We have split up our graph conclusions into two sections - Mid Range Performance which consists of the X700PRO, 6600GT and the 6800 and then the High End Performance which consists of the X800XL, X850XTs, 6800GT and 6800 Ultra.
We've constructed a graph below which shows you the differences in each card from price to clock speeds:
The data above should give you a decent understanding of where each graphics card sits in terms of price and what is "under the hood", so to speak. Let's get started with our benchmarks!
3DMark2001 SE
Version and / or Patch Used: Build 330 SE
Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com
Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark2001/
3DMark2001 SE is a part of the popular 3DMark series. By combining DirectX 8.1 support with completely new graphics (including the GeForce4), it continues to provide benchmark results that empower you to make informed hardware assessments.
Mid Range Performance - Here in 3DMark2001 SE at the lower resolution we see the X700PRO come out in front, when we move to the higher resolution we clearly see that both of the nVidia offerings are faster.
High End Performance - In the High End sector we see that the ATI cards dominate the nVidia cards across the board and in both resolutions.
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