Beyond Atom: Exploring Performance ITX Solutions
Gaming: Crysis, ETQW & HL2:Ep2
For the gaming benchmarks we decided not to include the Ion reference system since it didn't have the slightest hope of really competing except possibly with the DG41MJ's X4500. However the DG41MJ isn't meant for gaming in the first place so the real attraction here will be how the integrated GeForce 9300 compares with a discrete graphics card. For the purposes of this test we equipped the GF9300-D-E with a Radeon 4850. We chose the Radeon 4850 because you're unlikely to find a ITX case that will fit anything faster, as we saw in our Silverstone SG05 installation.
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If you're at all into
enthusiast computing, the highly anticipated single player, FPS
smash-hit Crysis, should require no introduction. Crytek's game engine
produces some stunning visuals that are easily the most impressive
real-time 3D renderings we've seen on the PC to date. The engine
employs some of the latest techniques in 3D rendering like Parallax
Occlusion Mapping, Subsurface Scattering, Motion Blur and
Depth-of-Field effects, as well as some of the most impressive use of
Shader technology we've seen yet. In short, for those of you that want
to skip the technical jib-jab, Crysis is a beast of a game. We ran the
full game patched to v1.21 with all of its visual options set to 'Medium'. |
Somewhat surprisingly, the GMA X4500 not only launched Crysis, but we were able to complete a whole set of benchmarks. However its performance is barely worth mentioning. The competition between the GF9300-D-E's integrated graphics and the discrete Radeon 4850 illustrates that for any sort of gaming oriented build, you just have to go discrete.
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Enemy
Territory: Quake Wars is Based on an enhanced version of id's Doom 3
engine and viewed by many as Battlefield 2 meets the Strogg, and then
some. In fact, we'd venture to say that id took EA's team-based
warfare genre up a notch or two. ET: Quake Wars also marks the
introduction of John Carmack's "Megatexture" technology that employs
large environment and terrain textures that cover vast areas of maps
without the need to repeat and tile many smaller textures. The beauty
of megatexture technology is that each unit only takes up a maximum of
8MB of frame buffer memory. Add to that HDR-like bloom lighting and
leading edge shadowing effects and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars looks
great, plays well and works high end graphics cards vigorously. |
The GeForce 9300 gave a decent performance in Enemy Territory Quake Wars, producing playable frame rates. However, it was still a far cry (no pun intended) compared to a discrete graphics card. For the Radeon 4850, it was a walk in the park. The GD41MJ's x4500 is still essentially useless as with Crysis.
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Thanks to the dedication of hardcore PC gamers and a huge mod-community, the original Half-Life became one of the most successful first person shooters of all time. And thanks to an updated game engine, gorgeous visual, and intelligent weapon and level design, Half Life 2 became just as popular. Episode 2 offers a number of visual enhancements including better looking transparent texture anti-aliasing. We used a custom recorded timedemo file to benchmark all cards in this test. |
The Half-Life 2 benchmark gave some interesting results. For the first time, not only did the X4500 post results higher than 10fps, but it also produced playable framerates, although just barely. The GeForce 9300 had no problem with the test and unsurprisingly the Radeon 4850 didn't even break a sweat.
