Asus P5A & AMD K6-3+ 570 OC @ 633 MHz Benchmark (with GeForce2 MX400)
TEST SYSTEM: MB: Asus P5A rev 1.04 CPU: AMD K6-2+ 570 MHz modded to AMD K6-3+ 570 MHz OC @ 633 MHz / FSB105 & 6.0 multi (2.1 Volts) RAM: 128 MB SAMSUNG SDRAM PC133 VIDEO: Asus V7100Pro GeForce 2 MX400 SOUND: Creative Sound Blaster Live 5.1 SB0220 (disabled for these tests) HDD: Seagate 40 GB IDE/PATA DRIVERS: Chipset drivers: ALi Integrated Driver 2.13 nVIDIA GeForce 2 MX400 drivers: 7.76 VIDEO DESCRIPTION: Having benchmarked this SS7 platform with a GeForce 2 Ultra and a Voodoo 3 3500, I'm now also testing the GeForce 2 MX400 to see how it compares. Make sure to also watch the previous videos related to SS7, where I benchmarked the K6-2+ @ 633 MHz and the K6-3+ @ 633 MHz using a GeForce 2 Ti OC @ Ultra speeds, and the K6-3+ @ 633 MHz using a Voodoo 3): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVUXrRnkrBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrV6vPGR3Yc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFFNyexouGU As expected, the GeForce 2 MX400 performs similarly to the GeForce 2 Ultra at lower resolutions (when using the same driver). On fast systems, once we start increasing the resolution (and color depth), though, the MX's crippled memory bandwidth (and depending on the game, to a lesser extent, the much lower fill rate), will start to quickly affect its performance. There are certain games, though, where even on this fast SS7 platform, we're still CPU bottlenecked at higher resolutions. This Asus GeForce 2 MX400 in particular has a bit more memory bandwidth than others (the memory clock runs at 200 MHz), but you would see identical performance at lower resolutions with a GeForce 2 MX (175 MHz core / 166 MHz memory clock), and up to 10% less performance at higher resolutions (depending on the game). Whatever GeForce 2 MX you're using, just make sure that the video card has the full 128 bit memory bus! So, IMO, the GeForce MX / MX400 are probably the best bang for the buck options for SS7 (cheap, fast, compatible, with very low power requirements). As always with SS7 and AGP cards, you might need to do a bit of fine tuning to get the platform stable when using a GeForce (which is typically not the case with Voodoo 3 AGP cards, they tend to be very stable from the get-go because they don't use any AGP specific features, instead using the AGP slot as a fast PCI). Unfortunately, Voodoo 3 has more than 3 times the power consumption of a GeForce 2 MX, and this can be a problem for some cheaper SS7 motherboards, and in that specific case, the GeForce 2 MX remains the best choice. VOGONS THREAD that contains more detailed information regarding these series of benchmarks https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=86384 OTHER BENCHMARKS: VIA C3 Ezra-T test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzXLPlmCMJ8 VIA C3 Nehemiah test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDSClAu9boo Pentium 3 "Katmai" 600 MHz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UkFnM_rYqE
TEST SYSTEM: MB: Asus P5A rev 1.04 CPU: AMD K6-2+ 570 MHz modded to AMD K6-3+ 570 MHz OC @ 633 MHz / FSB105 & 6.0 multi (2.1 Volts) RAM: 128 MB SAMSUNG SDRAM PC133 VIDEO: Asus V7100Pro GeForce 2 MX400 SOUND: Creative Sound Blaster Live 5.1 SB0220 (disabled for these tests) HDD: Seagate 40 GB IDE/PATA DRIVERS: Chipset drivers: ALi Integrated Driver 2.13 nVIDIA GeForce 2 MX400 drivers: 7.76 VIDEO DESCRIPTION: Having benchmarked this SS7 platform with a GeForce 2 Ultra and a Voodoo 3 3500, I'm now also testing the GeForce 2 MX400 to see how it compares. Make sure to also watch the previous videos related to SS7, where I benchmarked the K6-2+ @ 633 MHz and the K6-3+ @ 633 MHz using a GeForce 2 Ti OC @ Ultra speeds, and the K6-3+ @ 633 MHz using a Voodoo 3): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVUXrRnkrBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrV6vPGR3Yc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFFNyexouGU As expected, the GeForce 2 MX400 performs similarly to the GeForce 2 Ultra at lower resolutions (when using the same driver). On fast systems, once we start increasing the resolution (and color depth), though, the MX's crippled memory bandwidth (and depending on the game, to a lesser extent, the much lower fill rate), will start to quickly affect its performance. There are certain games, though, where even on this fast SS7 platform, we're still CPU bottlenecked at higher resolutions. This Asus GeForce 2 MX400 in particular has a bit more memory bandwidth than others (the memory clock runs at 200 MHz), but you would see identical performance at lower resolutions with a GeForce 2 MX (175 MHz core / 166 MHz memory clock), and up to 10% less performance at higher resolutions (depending on the game). Whatever GeForce 2 MX you're using, just make sure that the video card has the full 128 bit memory bus! So, IMO, the GeForce MX / MX400 are probably the best bang for the buck options for SS7 (cheap, fast, compatible, with very low power requirements). As always with SS7 and AGP cards, you might need to do a bit of fine tuning to get the platform stable when using a GeForce (which is typically not the case with Voodoo 3 AGP cards, they tend to be very stable from the get-go because they don't use any AGP specific features, instead using the AGP slot as a fast PCI). Unfortunately, Voodoo 3 has more than 3 times the power consumption of a GeForce 2 MX, and this can be a problem for some cheaper SS7 motherboards, and in that specific case, the GeForce 2 MX remains the best choice. VOGONS THREAD that contains more detailed information regarding these series of benchmarks https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=86384 OTHER BENCHMARKS: VIA C3 Ezra-T test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzXLPlmCMJ8 VIA C3 Nehemiah test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDSClAu9boo Pentium 3 "Katmai" 600 MHz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UkFnM_rYqE