Gaming Applications

These tests traditionally start with the 3DMark2001 SE.

In contrast to the business tests, the faster memory helps the integrated nForce2 a lot. It is not at all surprising, as the minimal memory bandwidth allocated for the integrated graphics core gets at least 1.5 times higher. Nonetheless, the integrated graphics loses to the external video card by a third at least because of the much lower memory bandwidth and lower core clock. It’s also interesting to know that the system with integrated graphics slows down by 5.5% with the higher memory latency. Here is what we have in the separate tests:

The results are generally similar to the total scores. All the systems have over 60fps, which is acceptable for most gamers.

However, the 3DMark is a synthetic test. Let’s see what our systems can do in real games:

Return To Castle Wolfenstein built on the Quake3 engine demonstrates how the performance correlation depends on the resolution. The graphics card performs equally fast in all resolutions, which indicates that this game is already too simple even for low-end video accelerators like GeForce4 MX440.

The integrated graphics core, however, behaves differently: in 640x480 it comes close to the external card. A minor difference is not that vital because all systems ensure over 100fps. At the higher resolution the difference grows up, but it’s still inconsiderable because the performance still doesn’t fall beyond 94fps. Finally, at the highest resolution the IGP reaches only 72.7fps (with the DDR266), though this is also quite enough to play games comfortably. The PC2700 used instead of the PC2100 boosts it by 15%.

Now comes the most difficult game for graphics accelerators - Serious Sam: The Second Encounter.

The results look similar to the previous game, only the integrated video starts losing to the external card at a lower resolution and by a greater margin. However, at 1024x768 the external card also performs not good enough. But you can play games anyway, even with the integrated video, especially with the PC2700 with lower latencies.