Gainward's GeForce3 Power Pack !!! Golden Sample

The Gainward GeForce3
Power Pack !!! Golden Sample
Tastefully Selected GeForce3 Goodness

By Dave Altavilla
9/10/01

Please take note of our test system specs.  Also remember these tests were all performed on Detonator 3 drivers, revision 12.41, before the Detonator 4 release.
 

HotHardware's Test System A Pentium 4 Machine

• Gainward GeForce3 Power Pack !!! Golden Sample 64MB AGP

• Intel Pentium 4 1.5GHz. Processor

• Abit TH7II-RAID Pentium 4 Motherboard

• 256MB of Samsung PC800 RAMBUS DRDRAM,

• Thermaltake Indigo Orb P4 CPU Cooler - Thanks Plycon!

• IBM DTLA307030 30Gig ATA100 7200 RPM Hard Drive

• Sound Blaster Live Sound Card,

• Kenwood True-X 72X CD

• Windows 2000 Professional

• Direct X 8.0 and nVidia reference drivers version 12.41

• Intel chipset drivers version 2.90

Methodology:

We ran every benchmark in this review, at both standard and overclocked speeds.  The overclock setting was at 260MHz. Core and 560MHz. Memory Clocks.  There are no comparisons to other GeForce3 cards in this review. 

As you have seen in many other reviews here, most all GeForce3 cards perform within 5% of each other, when at stock clock speeds.  The rubber meets the road, when it comes to stability and "overclockability".  The Gainward Golden Sample is King here in our book.

Benchmarks - 3DMark 2001 MadOnion's Finest

3DMark  2001 - Standard Clock Speeds

3DMark 2001 - Overclocked @ 260/560

Fantastic numbers were put up on the board by the Gainward Golden Sample when overclocked.  It is interesting to note that the best gain in performance in 3DMark2001, came from turning up the core speed rather than memory.  Even a few MHz. increase in core speed can make a real difference.

3DMark 2001 - Standard Clock Speed 4X Anti-Ailiasing

4X AA does cause a fairly big hit to the frame rate.  However, Max Payne still moves along nicely with 2800+  3DMarks even with 4X AA.

Vulpine GL Golden OpenGL Performance

Frame rates were smooth across the board within the VulpineGL test suite.  We gained from 10 to 20% at the overclocked setting here.  Specifically, we had a 10% gain at 800X600, 14% at 1024X768 and 20% at 1600X1200.

Let's bring in the heavy duty DirectX 8 artillary.

 Aquanox and DroneZ Benchmarks