X-bit labs

Six Value Graphics Cards Roundup

Category: Video

by FastSite

[ 01/22/2003 | 12:00 AM ]

Graphics cards priced below $100 occupy the biggest part of the market. Modern value graphics cards allow running 3D games, watching DVD and even dabbling at video processing. Today we are going to review six graphics cards from different manufacturers priced from $50 to $100. The cards are based on graphics chip from NVIDIA, ATI, SiS and STMicro and have 64MB of graphics memory onboard.

Table of contents:

• Testing Participants
  
• Inno3D Tornado3 Titanium 200
  
• ABIT Siluro GF4 MX
  
• SAPPHIRE RADEON 8500LE
  
• SAPPHIRE RADEON 9000
  
• EliteGroup AG200
  
• SUMA Platinum K2
  
• Testbed and Methods
  
• Performance
  
• Quake3 Arena
  
• Unreal Tournament 2003
  
• WarCraft III
  
• AquaMark 2.0
  
• Conclusion
  

Graphics cards priced below $100 occupy the biggest part of the market. These products belong to the most massive market segment targeted at unsophisticated users who don't want to spend $350-$500 for an expensive gaming or professional card. Modern value graphics cards allow running 3D games, watching DVD and even dabbling at video processing. Some of the today's value cards, for example GeForce3 Ti200 and RADEON 8500LE, used to be High-End products at their launch and far not everyone could afford them. Other cards were from the very beginning offered as an inexpensive solution for home or office PCs. Today we are going to review six graphics cards from different manufacturers priced from $50 to $100. The cards are based on graphics chip from NVIDIA, ATI, SiS and STMicro and have 64MB of graphics memory onboard. The main goal of our review is to compare performance of the cards in modern 3D games.

Testing Participants

Inno3D Tornado3 Titanium 200

The Inno3D Company is a division of InnoVision. There was a time when Inno3D used to sell graphics cards of not very high quality that came in OEM configurations and were often mistaken for "no name" products. Now, Inno3D is trying to earn a better reputation and win more customers. The company doesn't spare money on ads and pays much attention to its retail products. And the most important thing is that cards from Inno3D have got much better quality during the last two years while still remaining affordable from the price point of view. Today Inno3D is making and selling graphics cards based on chips from NVIDIA, SiS, STMicro and Trident. There is only ATI missing on the list, but this drawback has every chance to be soon eliminated. Anyway, these are just my suppositions so far. The Tornado graphics cards family we are talking about is based on NVIDIA's GPUs only.

GeForce3 Ti200 chip Tornado3 Ti200 card is based on, used to belong to the High-End market sector. GeForce3 GTS (NV20) graphics core itself was developed with advanced users and gamers in mind. There were two NV20-based chips: a faster and costlier GeForce3 Ti500 with higher frequencies of the core and graphics memory (240/500MHz, respectively) and a better value GeForce3 Ti200 working at lower frequencies (200/400MHz). After the launch of the GeForce4, the GeForce3 Ti500 was discontinued, while GeForce3 Ti200 smoothly downgraded into the value market sector. It's still considered a worthy rival of the GeForce4 MX440 and ATI RADEON 8500LE.

Inno3D Tornado3 Titanium 200 comes in a small colorful box. Besides the graphics card the box also contained an InnoVision MegaPack Bundle booklet with two CDs (drivers and WinDVD 2000), a mouse pad and the user's manual.

If the card is equipped with a TV-output, there is also an S-Video-to-Composite adapter and a Composite-Composite cable in the box to connect the computer to a TV-set or VCR. This TV-Out was missing in our card.

The PCB of the Tornado3 Titanium 200 is colored black. There is no TV-Out or DVI connector. It's a kind of drawback of this model, as all the other reviewed cards feature a TV-Out.

Tornado3 Ti200 has 64MB of DDR SDRAM onboard. Actually, Inno3D also produces a 128MB version of the card, but it's not included into our review exactly because of the memory amount and, accordingly, a higher price. All the memory chips are placed on the front side of the PCB and are covered with large aluminum heatsinks. Overall, the cooling system of the Tornado3 Ti200 looks quite impressive: the GPU features a round cooler resembling the Low Profile Blue Orb. Its airflow comes through the ribs of the memory heatsinks for better DDR SDRAM chips cooling.

Overclocking

During the overclocking of this graphics cards, we didn't use any additional cooling and didn't modify the cards in any way. So, they underwent overclocking just the way they are sold in stores.

By default, the graphics card from Inno3D works at 175/400MHz chip and memory frequencies. These are standard frequencies for the GeForce3 Ti200. We overclocked the GeForce3 Ti200 core from 175MHz to 250MHz, the frequency growth being 42%. The graphics memory, to our regret, could only notch 440MHz making 10% frequency growth. Actually, these results were quite expected, as the GeForce3 Ti200 chip has long been in production and its manufacturing technology has been well-polished by now. This accounts for the chip's good overclockability. The memory chips in Tornado3 Titanium 200, just like in many other GeForce3 Ti200 based cards, are rather old. Their clock cycle time is 5ns and the nominal frequency equals 200MHz (400MHz DDR). This memory heats up a lot, to the bargain.

GeForce3 Ti200 based graphics cards no longer belong to the High-End market sector and quite successfully compete with GeForce4 MX440 based ones.

ABIT Siluro GF4 MX

Products from ABIT have really deserved end-users' respect. Graphics cards from Siluro family based on GeForce4 MX440 GPU come in large colorful boxes with specs of the card written on the box in many languages.

Besides the graphics card, the package includes a user's manual, a CD with drivers, an S-Video cable, a splitter from composite 9-pin video out to 4-pin S-Video and Composite outs, and a Composite cable.

The blue PCB of the Siluro GF4 MX graphics card follows the NVIDIA's reference design. The card may come in two versions: the Siluro GF4 MX VIO with a TV-Out, video input and DVI connector and the ordinary Siluro GF4 MX with a TV-Out only. We tested the latter version, which is also selling at a lower price.

GeForce4 MX440 GPU is hidden under a massive aluminum cooler with "ABIT" and "Siluro" labels. On the whole, NVIDIA considered GeForce4 MX440 a "cool" chip and recommended to mount a passive cooler onto it, i.e. without any fan. In this case, the graphics card would work absolutely noiselessly and would be a little cheaper. However, since the price difference between coolers with and without fans is vanishing compared to the cost of the graphics card itself, many manufacturers installed fully-fledged coolers onto their products. Thanks to that, the graphics core showed better overclockability and worked stably in extreme conditions, such as small system cases or during the warmest season.

Although GeForce4 MX440 chip has two integrated RAMDACs thus providing picture output onto two displays, not all manufacturers use this feature. For example, ABIT preferred not to solder up a DVI connector or a second VGA output. As we have said above, a more expensive (VIO) version of Siluro GF4 MX is the one equipped with a DVI connector.

Siluro GF4 MX card has a composite TV-Out connector. You can plug into it a standard S-Video cable or a special splitter that comes with the card. When using the splitter, you can connect the graphics card to a TV-set and a VHS at the same time. See the picture below:

Siluro GF4 MX is equipped with 64MB DDR SDRAM in four chips soldered up on both sides of the PCB. The memory from Hynix has 4ns clock cycle time and the nominal working frequency of 250MHz (500 MHz DDR).

The recommended nominal frequencies for GeForce4 MX440 based cards are 270MHz/400MHz. ABIT Siluro GF4 MX works at 270/405MHz. So, the memory here works at a higher frequency than recommended by NVIDIA, but at a lower frequency than the nominal one for the used DDR SDRAM chips. This allows us to hope for good results during overclocking.

Overclocking

As we have said, the nominal working frequencies of ABIT Siluro GF4 MX are 270MHz for the chip and 405MHz for the graphics memory. Now, as enough time has passed since GeForce4 MX440 launch, we can expect it to show high overclocking potential. We were not disappointed: the graphics card could work at 315MHz/513MHz respectively. The core frequency growth could have been higher, though: it's 45MHz or 16%. While the memory was overclocked by the good 27%. In fact there is nothing to be surtprised at, as the nominal frequency of these memory chips is 500MHz, though they work at 405MHz only.

The immediate rivals of NVIDIA's GPUs in all price ranges are graphics cards based on graphics chips from ATI Technologies Inc. There are two of them in our today's roundup. Let's begin with the more expensive one.

SAPPHIRE RADEON 8500LE

RADEON 8500LE based graphics cards were not initially targeted at the "below $100" price group. At launch RADEON 8500LE was the most powerful graphics chip and quite successfully competed with NVIDIA GeForce3 and GeForce3 Ti500 GPUs. Now it has moved down to the value market and is rivaling with GeForce3 Ti200.

RADEON 8500LE based graphics cards were sold only by some third partied, and ATI produced only regular RADEON 8500 based solutions working at higher chip and memory frequencies. Chips marked as RADEON 8500LE support 250MHz chip and 500MHz memory frequencies, while the regular RADEON 8500 - 275MHz and 550MHz respectively.

SAPPHIRE is rather loyal to ATI and offers graphics cards based on all the modern chips from the RADEON family. SAPPHIRE RADEON 8500LE comes with 128MB or 64MB of graphics memory. Only the 64MB version of the card belongs to the "below $100" price group.

The card we have got comes in OEM package. It's packed into a plastic bag together with an S-Video cable and a CD with the drivers. There is neither an S-Video-to-Composite adapter nor the user's manual in the bag.

This graphics card exactly copies the reference-design of the RADEON 8500 from ATI. Even the sticker on the cooler displays the ATI logo, not the SAPPHIRE's one as it might have been expected. The heart of this card, the RADEON 8500LE chip, hides under a small cooler, which is glued to the surface of the chip and cannot be removed.

RADEON 8500LE chip doesn't support TV-out functions, so there is an additional ATI Rage Theater chip soldered up. The chip provides image output onto a TV-set.

It's a much better quality thing compared to the decoders used by the GeForce4 MX440 and GeForce3, so no wonder that Rage Theater is used in all RADEON 8500 based cards. They all have an S-Video TV-out. Our SAPPHIRE RADEON 8500LE just like the described above ABIT Siluro GF4 MX features a 9-pin Out like that.

RADEON 8500 graphics chip supports image output onto two displays due to ATI's brand HydroVision technology. But not all graphics cards based on this chip can work with two displays. The point is that RADEON 8500LE has an embedded transmitter for image transfer to a digital DVI-Out, but only one embedded RAMDAC. In order to provide picture output onto two displays at a time, a second RAMDAC should be installed next to the graphics chip (the soldering-up spot is marked by the red box in the snapshot below).

Not all manufacturers of RADEON 8500LE based cards prove the second external RAMDAC by their products, thus trying to save on costs. SAPPHIRE is no exception here. Therefore the card we tested didn't have the second RAMDAC and hence couldn't ensure output onto two displays, although it supported LCD displays through the DVI connector.

The card features 64MB of the DDR SDRAM graphics memory. Eight memory chips are located on both sides of the PCB.

The memory chips are manufactured by EtronTech, have 4ns clock cycle time and 250MHz (500MHz) nominal frequency. In other words, the memory works are its nominal frequency by default.

Overclocking

SAPPHIRE RADEON 8500LE showed good overclocking potential: the overclocked core worked at 300MHz, overclocked memory at 280MHz (560MHz DDR). The core frequency growth was 20%, memory frequency growth - 12%. As a result, the card could boast higher frequencies than the ordinary RADEON (without "LE").

Not so long ago ATI decided to rename its RADEON 8500 chips into RADEON 9100 so that the name could be in accord with the names of the new RADEON family. Anyway, despite the number "9" in the marking, the RADEON 9100 is still the same good old RADEON 8500 with no DirectX9 and AGP 8x support.

SAPPHIRE RADEON 9000

RADEON 9000 chip, unlike RADEON 8500, was targeted at the $100 price range from the very beginning. It was supposed to replace the out-dated RADEON 7500. Today RADEON 9000 costs very little and is quite comparable in price with Xabre200 and KYRO II based cards.

This card, as well as the SAPPHIRE RADEON 8500LE, entered our test lab in its OEM package, without any box. The plastic bag it came in also included a CD with the drivers and an S-Video-to-Composite adapter.

SAPPHIRE RADEON 9000 graphics card resembles ATI Xpert 2000 card based on Rage 128 Pro chip, which was popular a couple of years ago. The PCB here has the same green color and unnatural shape. ATI Xpert 2000 was rather slow even for its time and quite appropriately got a nickname of a "3D retarder". So the first impression made by SAPPHIRE RADEON 9000 was somewhat spoiled. Let's hope that the shape of the card has nothing to do with its performance.

The design of the card is rather simple. RADEON 9000 graphics chip has an integrated TV-out unit, a TMDS transmitter necessary for DVI output implementation (although there is no DVI connector on the card) and a second RAMDAC for dual-display configurations. As a result, the layout is much simplified compared to that of RADEON 8500LE. The absence of the DVI allowed the manufacturer to save on textolite by removing the left upper corner of the PCB.

The card carries a composite 9-pin TV-Out connector compatible with the four-pin S-Video port.

An adapter for the Composite connector comes with the card, as we have mentioned above. It helps to connect a TV-set or a VHS without an S-Video port to the computer.

SAPPHIRE RADEON 9000 graphics card has no fan on the graphics chip, just a passive heatsink. It means that it's absolutely noiseless at work.

The heatsink is glued to the chip surface and it's a hard task to replace it with another cooler. But as we will learn during our overclocking attempts, there is no reason to change the cooler.

Eight DDR SDRAM chips from EtronTech are placed on the both sides of the PCB.

This is the same memory as in SAPPHIRE RADEON 8500LE. It has 4ns clock cycle time and 250MHz (500MHz DDR) nominal frequency.

Overclocking

The nominal working frequencies of RADEON 9000 are 250MHz for the chip and 400MHz for the graphics memory. We see that the memory chips work at a lower frequency than the initial nominal. Of course, it could be nice to increase it up to the nominal value, but RADEON 9000 chip has integrated overclocking protection system. Its frequencies are locked and when you try to increase the frequency of the graphics core or memory, the card hangs up. So, unfortunately, it's impossible to overclock SAPPHIRE RADEON 9000.