The Slot-1 Pentium II Test System AnandTech used was configured as follows:
An Intel Celeron 300A, an Intel Pentium II 400, & an Intel Pentium II 450 on an ABIT BX6 Motherboard
64MB Mushkin SEC PC100 SDRAM
Western Digital 5.1GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive
AOpen 32X IDE CD-ROM Drive
Windows 98 with all of the latest patches/drivers installed
The benchmark suite consisted of the following full version game titles
Forsaken - Running the Nuke Demo
Quake 2 v3.17 using Demo1.dm2 and Brett "3 Fingers" Jacobs Crusher.dm2 demo
Ziff Davis' Winbench 98 was used to test 2D performance at 1024 x 768 x 16-bit color.
VSYNC was disabled during AnandTech's tests (VSYNC is the synchronization of all buffer swaps to the refresh rate of your monitor, theoretically limiting the attainable frame rate by the refresh rate your monitor is set at. Disabling it will improve performance but may degrade visual quality by introducing "tearing")
For the in-depth gaming performance tests Brett "3 Fingers" Jacobs Crusher.dm2 demo was used to simulate the worst case scenario in terms of Quake 2 performance, the point at which your frame rate will rarely drop any further. In contrast, the demo1.dm2 demo was used to simulate the ideal situation in terms of Quake 2 performance, the average high point for your frame rate in normal play. The range covered by the two benchmarks can be interpreted as the range in which you can expect average frame rates during gameplay.
Note: Performance between two TNT based cards is virtually identical, to see a more complete comparison of how your system will perform using a TNT based video card, visit the AnandTech Canopus Spectra 2500 Review.
Ziff Davis Winbench 98 - 2D Performance |
||
- | Business | High End |
- | Windows 98 - P2 400 | Windows 98 - P2 400 |
Diamond Viper V550 16MB | 207 | 274 |
Canopus Spectra 2500 16MB | 207 | 274 |
Diamond G460 i740 8MB | 206 | 274 |
Matrox G200 8MB | 207 | 269 |
Savage3D 8MB | 190 | 269 |
16bpp vs 32bpp Color Comparison - Quake 2 - Open GL Performance |
||
Pentium II 450 |
Timedemo - 800 x 600 | |
- | demo1.dm2 | crusher.dm2 |
Diamond Viper V550 (TNT) - 16bpp Color | 60.0 | 39.9 |
Diamond Viper V550 (TNT) - 32bpp Color | 44.2 | 29.7 |
- | Timedemo - 1024 x 768 | |
- | demo1.dm2 | crusher.dm2 |
Diamond Viper V550 (TNT) - 16bpp Color | 38.5 | 27.0 |
Diamond Viper V550 (TNT) - 32bpp Color | 31.2 | 20.9 |
The difference in performance doesn't justify the difference in image quality between 16bpp and 32bpp color modes with the TNT and current games, as can be seen from the Unreal screen shots below. Keep in mind that some quality was lost due to the JPEG compression.
16bpp | 32bpp |
Video Accelerator Comparison - Quake 2 - Open GL Performance |
||
Pentium II - 233 |
Timedemo - 640 x 480 | |
- | demo1.dm2 | crusher.dm2 |
Diamond Viper V550 (TNT) | 47.0 | 22.3 |
Canopus Spectra 2500 (TNT) | 47.4 | 22.4 |
Canopus Pure 3D-2 (Voodoo2) | 56.7 | 24.9 |
Matrox Mystique G200 (G200)* | 32.3 | 17.9 |
- | Timedemo - 800 x 600 | |
- | demo1.dm2 | crusher.dm2 |
Diamond Viper V550 (TNT) | 45.9 | 22.3 |
Canopus Spectra 2500 (TNT) | 45.9 | 22.3 |
Canopus Pure 3D-2 (Voodoo2) | 51.5 | 25.2 |
Matrox Mystique G200 (G200)* | 26.4 | 17.2 |
- | Timedemo - 1024 x 768 | |
- | demo1.dm2 | crusher.dm2 |
Diamond Viper V550 (TNT) | 37.1 | 22.3 |
Canopus Spectra 2500 (TNT) | 37.3 | 22.3 |
Canopus Pure 3D-2 (Voodoo2) | N/S | N/S |
Matrox Mystique G200 (G200)* | 17.4 | 14.1 |
* The Matrox G200 was using a Direct3D Wrapper for the Quake 2 tests, performance should improve once a Full OpenGL ICD is released
Video Accelerator Comparison - Quake 2 - Open GL Performance |
||
Pentium II - 333 |
Timedemo - 640 x 480 | |
- | demo1.dm2 | crusher.dm2 |
Diamond Viper V550 (TNT) | 69.0 | 31.4 |
Canopus Spectra 2500 (TNT) | 69.3 | 31.5 |
Canopus Pure 3D-2 (Voodoo2) | 75.1 | 34.7 |
Matrox Mystique G200 (G200)* | 39.2 | 24.3 |
- | Timedemo - 800 x 600 | |
- | demo1.dm2 | crusher.dm2 |
Diamond Viper V550 (TNT) | 57.0 | 31.4 |
Canopus Spectra 2500 (TNT) | 57.2 | 31.4 |
Canopus Pure 3D-2 (Voodoo2) | 58.1 | 32.4 |
Matrox Mystique G200 (G200)* | 28.4 | 21.6 |
- | Timedemo - 1024 x 768 | |
- | demo1.dm2 | crusher.dm2 |
Diamond Viper V550 (TNT) | 38.2 | 28.6 |
Canopus Spectra 2500 (TNT) | 38.5 | 28.6 |
Canopus Pure 3D-2 (Voodoo2) | N/S | N/S |
Matrox Mystique G200 (G200)* | 17.9 | 15.4 |
* The Matrox G200 was using a Direct3D Wrapper for the Quake 2 tests, performance should improve once a Full OpenGL ICD is released
Pentium II Test System - Forsaken - Direct3D Performance |
|
Pentium II 400 |
Frame Rate - 800 x 600 |
- | Nuke Demo |
Diamond Viper V550 (TNT) | 133.76 |
Canopus Spectra 2500 16MB | 130.88 |
Canopus Pure 3D-2 Voodoo2 12MB | 96.26 |
Diamond G460 i740 8MB | 39.92 |
Matrox G200 8MB | 74.60 |
Savage3D 8MB | 116.32 |
- | Frame Rate - 1024 x 768 |
Nuke Demo | |
Diamond Viper V550 (TNT) | 79.60 |
Canopus Spectra 2500 16MB | 78.85 |
Diamond G460 i740 8MB | 26.30 |
Matrox G200 8MB | 46.37 |
Savage3D 8MB | Failed |
Any real differences between the two TNT cards? Not really, leave performance out of your decision and concentrate on features.
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