|
Last week's
Game
Developers Conference was pumped up with lots of hype
and excitement, regarding not only the software behind
next generation game engines, but also the hardware that
will power them. Both ATi and NVIDIA announced
DirectX 9 capable Graphics Cards, that will deliver
fantastic levels of realism in upcoming titles like Doom
3. As we know, in the land of PC Gaming, Graphics
Cards are sort of like that tricked out engine you had in
that '88 Mustang GT, back in the day.
While ATi
decided to launch a new high end card, NVIDIA took the
mainstream route and unveiled their new GPUs for the
masses.
NVIDIA's GeForce FX 5600 and 5200 series cards, that
we showed you here, have price points that range from $199
to $99. We've covered the features and architecture
of all the new GeForce FX products last week. Today,
we bring you a benchmark and performance analysis of the
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra, which weighs in at the ever
popular price point of $149.
Here's a quick
refresh of the specs and then we'll just dig right into
the numbers!
THE
NVIDIA GEFORCE FX 5200 ULTRA
CLICK ANY IMAGE FOR AN
ENLARGED VIEW
|
|
|
Specifications & Features of the NVIDIA GeForce
FX 5200 GPUs |
|
That's it! No more specs for you!! (insert Soup
Nazi accent) On to the benchmarks! |
|
Cinematic Shading for the mainstream
- Full GeForce FX
feature support ? including DX9 vertex & pixel
shader 2.0+
- High precision
rendering ? up to128-bit floating point color
Performance
- 2X GeForce4 MX
performance
- DX9 optimizations
and support
- AGP 8X enables up
to 2.1GB/sec bandwidth
Best-in-class
features and reliability
- Industry-renowned
unified driver architecture (UDA)
- Integrated
TV-encoder, TMDS transmitters
- Dual integrated 350
MHz RAMDACs
- Integrated full
hardware MPEG-2 decoder
- HDTV Support
Engineered for
compatibility with the latest gaming and multimedia
software
- First and only DX9
part in its price category
|
THE GEFORCE FX 5200
ULTRA
CORE CLOCK: 325MHZ
MEMORY CLOCK: 325MHZ
FILLRATE: 1.3GP/s
MEMORY BANDWIDTH: 10.4GB/s
|
|
|
|
HotHardware's Test Setup |
|
A
Mainstream Pentium 4 System |
|
Common
Hardware:
Intel
Pentium 4 2.4GHz (2800MHz) 533MHz FSB
Soyo P4X400 DRAGON Ultra Platinum
VIA P4X400
Chipset w/ AGP8X
512MB
Corsair PC3500 Platinum DDR RAM C2
On-Board
NIC
On-Board
Sound
Maxtor 30GB
ATA/133 7200RPM HD
Lite-On 16X
DVD-ROM
Standard
Floppy Drive
Windows XP
Professional with SP1
VIA
"Hyperion" 4-in-1 Drivers v4.45
ATi Radeon
9000 Pro
ATi
Catalyst Drivers - Version 3.1
NVIDIA
GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
Detonator
Drivers - Version 42.68
|
|
|
Benchmarks / Comparison With 3DMark2001 SE
(Build 330) |
|
Synthetic DirectX 8 Performance |
|
Our first
batch of testing was done with DX8 driven 3DMark2001 SE. This test utilizes Remedy's "MaxFX"
game engine, so the thought process here is that it is
perhaps a little less "synthetic" per say, than the new
3DMark03. Regardless, it's a good relative
performance metric on Direct 3D capabilities of the
graphics subsystem.
Here the
playing field is leveled. Both cards are capable of
DX8 Pixel and Vertex Shader effects, as well as
Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering for improved image
quality. However, the GeForce FX 5200 Ultra shows
it's more up to the challenge here, besting the Radeon
9000 Pro at all resolutions and AA/Aniso settings.
As you read our graphs, keep in mind the Radeon 9000 Pro can only run
2X AA up to
1280x1024, and 4X AA up to 1024x768, hence all of the
empty spaces on some of the graphs...
Next Up, 3DMark03,
Comanche 4 & UT2003...
| 
