X-bit labs - Print version

We continue reviewing latest generation graphics cards based on the newest chipset from NVIDIA - GeForce 256. We managed toget four new graphics cards: ELSA Erazor X, Creative 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro, ASUS AGP-V6600Deluxe and Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 DDR.

We continue reviewing latest generation graphics cards based on the newest chipset from NVIDIA - GeForce 256.During the 4 months since the launching of this GPU there have already appeared quite a lot of cards on thischipset. Nevertheless, we have to say that a great number of manufacturers, including some Taiwanese ones, arerather slow in launching their products of the kind. That is why today the companies manufacturing NVIDIA GeForce256 based graphics cards can be counted on the fingers of one hand.<%BANNER[article]%>

Since GeForce 256 supports not only SDR SDRAM but also a faster DDR SGRAM, the graphics cards with this particularDDR-memory (Double Data Rate) are becoming more and more popular. In this respect we decided to review a couple of othergraphics cards, which appeared after the first part of our NVIDIA GeForce 256 Graphics Cards Comparison had been posted.Three of the cards tested are equipped with DDR-memory.

We have already written a couple of reviews and previews devoted to GeForce 256 chipset where we described its mainpeculiarities and features in great detail. That is why now we will simply refresh your memory with a brief list ofthese features:

We have already noted that this graphics chipset is the richest in various features throughout the entirecomputer history. However, we have to bear in mind that very often the manufacturers embellish their products.As a result some super cool features may turn out existing only on the paper or may remain uninvolved because ofthe unfinished and imperfect software. We have a very illustrative example for NVIDIA GeForce 256: no actual sceneanti-aliasing. Of course, anti-aliasing caused such incredible performance drops that it could be better not tohave it at all.That's why anti-aliasing is simply disabled in the drivers. But what's the use of these empty wordsthen?

Nevertheless, this chipset is not deprived of a lot of positive things. First of all this is, of course, higherfillrate achieved due to the double core pipelining. Besides, we should also mention beautiful quality in 3D graphicsdue to perfected drivers and anisotropic filtering support. If you are looking for more details on the matter, you maycheck our Creative 3D Blaster Annihilator Review posted in autumn.

Before passing over to the graphics cards description, we need to mention once again all the restrictions imposed bythe memory type used on the graphics card over the card's performance. As we have already warned you, SDR memory causesa shockingly significant performance drop when you shift to 32-bit color. The same thing happens to a Mercedes S-classwhen it gets stuck in a traffic jam. However, experienced drivers never choose narrow streets with a lot of traffic lightsand cars if they want to show off, while the graphics cards manufacturers keep using SDR memory because the DDR memory isallegedly more expensive.

Nevertheless, the price on the available cards equipped with DDR memory is not so incredibly high (in autumn we werepromised a difference of about $100 between the cards with SDR and DDR memory, and now it hardly exceeds $50). That iswhy we consider reviewing a couple of graphics cards with DDR memory to be something pretty interesting for all of us.But let everything take its natural course. At first we would like to describe the graphics cards we chose for testing.

ELSA Erazor X

Thiscard with AGP 2x/4x interface is provided with 32MB 6ns SDRAM (SDR) on board, which is located in 4 64MB modules.As you have probably noticed on the photo, the card's design is very much different from that of the graphics cardswith SDR memory we have reviewed. The card looks very compact and can boast a very large heatsink with a fan on it.The card doesn't have any additional functions most of you are probably used to, such as TV-out and LCD connector.However, you can clearly see an unusual white connector on the PCB of the card. It is very likely that ELSA willproduce some daughter cards (like Rainbow Runner Studio from Matrox), which will work only together with ELSA ErazorX and the like. Unfortunately, we failed to find the description of this connector: neither the card documentation,nor the company's web-site said anything about it.

If you take a look at the reversed side of the graphics card, you will see some empty spaces for another memory set. So,the current PCB design was initially intended for 64MB memory. By the way, ELSA Gloria II based on NVIDIA Quadro has thesame design as ELSA Erazor X but 64MB memory.

Here we would like to stress that unlike all other analogues, ELSA Erazor X is equipped with 6ns modules for 166MHz(if you remember ASUS AGP-V6600, Creative 3D Blaster GeForce 256, Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 are equipped with 5nsmemory modules for 200MHz but clocked for 166MHz). This fact is a certain evidence of the typical German pedantry:what's the use of using faster and more expensive memory if the official nominal is 166MHz? That's why the memory ofthis graphics card is almost impossible to overclock. The maximum we managed to squeeze out of the card tested was150/170MHz (the chipset and memory frequency correspondingly). And the nominal was 120/166MHz.

The graphics card goes together with ELSA drivers, which differ greatly from the reference drivers. However, thecontents of the drivers is very familiar to NVIDIA users: almost the same settings and options. The drives alsoinclude a tweak utility called overclocker.

And now we would like to dwell on one interesting peculiarity of this graphics card: ChipGuard technology. Sincethe card's design is very different from the reference, it allows installing a special thermal sensor onto the chipset,which ensures safe work of the microchip and controls its heating. If the chipset overclocks too much or if the coolingis insufficient (for instance, the fan breaks down), this technology allows warning the user via software and in case noreaction follows, reducing the chipset working frequency. Unfortunately, the chipset fan has no tachometer that is whythere is no way to check its rotation speed. To our great disappointment this is not the only drawback. The thing is thateither this card revision doesn't have any technological means to control the temperature or the current drivers do notsupport ChipGuard since we failed to see this technology working and couldn't find any proof of this fact. Even when we onpurpose overclocked the chipset without any additional cooling and as a result it started displaying some nonsense on thescreen, we didn't get any warnings or other messages about overheating. In fact, is was very sad…

The graphics card is supplied in a box together with a user's manual, a CD-disk with drivers, a DVD-disk with demo moviesand a CD-disk with a Corel Draw trial version.

ASUS AGP-V6600 Deluxe

This graphics card has AGP 2x/4x interface, 32MB 5ns SGRAM (SDR) memory placed in 8 microchips on both sides ofthe card. The chipset is covered by a heatsink on a special fastening mechanism. The heatsink has a fan with atachometer. If you have read our reviews of the products on NVIDIA Riva TNT2 Ultra or if you have ever had anASUS AGP-V3800 Deluxe, then you probably know the meaning of the word "Deluxe" for ASUS products. Namely, itmeans that the graphics card is provided with a TV-in/out and supports ASUS VR-100 3D stereo glasses.

This card also has the corresponding microchips for TV-in/out and the following connectors:

The card is equipped with memory modules from SEC intended for 200MHz but clocked for 166MHz. Unfortunately, it turnedout impossible to overclock the memory higher than up to 205MHz. Besides, the chipset turned out inclined to overheatingthat is why the maximum we achieved was only 130/200MHz.

It is not for nothing that we drew your attention to the cooler tachometer. ASUS AGP-V6600 Deluxe (as well as AGP-V6600SGRAM) can boast a unique overheating protection technology - Smart Doctor, which includes chipset temperature, voltage andfan rotation speed control. And unlike the previous card, ASUS AGP-V6600 Deluxe makes full use of this technology with thehelp of Smart Doctor utility supplied with the card. Let us briefly introduce it to you:

The technology put into life by the utility of the same name allows controlling the temperature of NVIDIA GeForce 256chipset, its voltage and fan rotation speed. This utility informs the user of the graphics card's state in a specialwindow. If the chipset temperature rises over 70^oC the user receives the first warning. After 85^oC the chipset workingfrequency will be automatically reduced. However, it is not all. Even working in normal mode (at nominal frequencies)Smart Doctor tries to cool down the chipset by means of reducing its working frequency when possible. For instance in"wasted" mode, i.e. when there are no active applications running (besides those, which are activated during the systembooting). Smart Doctor utility reduces the chipset frequency down to 90-100MHz and it immediately restores all theparameters, as soon as any of the applications is started, which requires more or less intensive 2D-graphics. And ifyou start a 3D application, even in the background mode, the chipset frequency will never get reduced except someemergency cases (such as extreme overheating, for example).

The accompanying software also includes ASUS Tweak Utility, which allows overclocking the card (chipset and memoryfrequency):

However, it is still not the most remarkable thing. The coolest feature of ASUS AGP-V6600 Deluxe is a set ofTV-functions and stereo glasses support. Let's begin with the TV-in. It is carried out with ASUS Live program.During the tests we used version 3.5:

This screenshot presents TV-in control panel and the screen with the displayed image (we used an NTSC video tapewith a short movie). Unfortunately, we failed to improve the image quality here and the artifacts of the static imageappeared quite visible. Maybe it is the cables connecting the video recorder to the graphics card, which are to blame forthis poor quality: they were over 4 meters long that's why we can't absolutely disregard EMI effect.

ASUS Live v.3.5 also supports SECAM standard, which is important for Russia and France:

Here is a screenshot captured with this utility. Unfortunately, the artifacts mentioned above are all here:

By the way, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that when you capture some separate frames there appears aspecial window with a list of saved screenshots. You can view these pictures, but unfortunately, you can't select and deletethose ones you no longer need.

And now let's take a quick look at the main options offered by ASUS Live V.3.5. They include not only TV input and snapshotscapturing but also video movie recording. In this case you should first of all select the resolution, codec type and compressionmethod:

Then you have to set where the movie will be saved to and enable audio capture if your system is equipped witha sound card and the audio signal source is connected to it:

When working with the snapshot parameters, you can enter the directory you want to save the BMP files to andenumerate the files saved:

We can offer you a sample of a video recorded movie in AVI-format and compressed by the MPEG-encoder "as is",i.e. with all default settings.

And now let's pay a bit of attention to ASUS VR-100 3D stereo glasses supplied together with ASUS AGP-V6600Deluxe:

If you install the latest driver version 3.66 beta2 from ASUS, you will get two properties pages in the stereoglasses settings: Direct3D and OpenGL, because these glasses provide stereo effect in both API. The glassesconstruction is similar to ELSA Revelator 3D Glasses we have already reviewed some time ago. In other words,the lenses close in turns with the frequency of 60, 70 or 75Hz, and the picture on the monitor is displayed withthe same frequency for the left and the right eye correspondingly:

Here we can set the distance between the eyes, the distance from the eyes to the monitor, objects embossmentlevel, perspective level, page flipping.

Depending on your monitor you can set the monitor refresh rate. However, you should keep in mind that in stereomode your monitor will display the picture with a twice as high frequency. In other words, if you want to get about75Hz for each eye, then your monitor should be capable of running at 150Hz at that resolution.

Besides, you can also enable screen menu in stereo mode where you will be able to set all the parameters from thegame.

However, you should remember that in order to enable stereo mode in OpenGL applications you have to run theseapplications at a doubled resolution. It means that if you want to get:

And the last thing. Stereo effect is a highly individual thing and if some of you can't help admiring the 3Dimages behind the monitor screen, the others may fail to notice anything particular and remain absolutelydisappointed with the stereo effects.

ASUS AGP-V6600 Deluxe is supplied in a package, which contains the card, stereo glasses and a set of cables, aswell as a user's manual, CD-disks with drivers and some games (such as Drakan, Rollcage, etc.).

Just in case: the card is supplied with the drivers based on reference drivers ver. 3.48.

Creative 3D Blaster GeForce 256 Annihilator Pro

The graphics card with such a long and frightening name has AGP 2x/4x interface and 32MB 6ns DDR SGRAM memory fromInfineon located in 8 microchips on both sides of the card. This card represents the family of the today's fastest andalso most expensive graphics cards on NVIDIA GeForce 256.

The chipset is provided with an active cooler stuck to it, and the PCB also has two spots for TV-out and LCD-out.The memory installed on the card is intended for 166MHz frequency, however, it is clocked for 150MHz, which has thesame effect as SDR memory at 300MHz. The maximum we managed to overclock the card to was 140/170(340)MHz.

The graphics card is supplied in a retail package together with a user's manual, CD-disks with the drivers,demo-programs and Evolva game.

The drivers, which go with the card, are based on NVIDIA 3.48 and include brand Blaster Control. However, itsproperties pages are absolutely identical to the main settings of NVIDIA reference drivers.

Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 DDR

This graphics card can't boast any significant differences from the previous one, and at first sight the onlydistinguishing feature turns out the color. It also has AGP 2x/4x interface and 32MB 6ns DDR SGRAM memory by Infineon.However, there is another peculiarity typical of this card only: both - a TV-out and LCD-out are already installed on thecard. Note that TV-out connector is made on the form of S-Video one and that's why the package also includes a specialcomposite converter.

The card is equipped with an active cooler, but this time it is not stuck to the chipset but fastened to it with acouple of pins. As in the previous case, the memory initially intended for 166MHz is clocked for 150MHz (300MHz). Itcan be overclocked to 150MHz chipset and 175 (350)MHz memory frequency.

The supply includes S-Video Composite converter, a user's manual, a number of CD-disks with the software (drivers,movie editing packages, 3D objects developing for WEB designers, etc.).

The drivers supplied with the card are based on NVIDIA reference drivers 3.56. The settings are very convenientlydistributed on the properties pages and are practically the same as those in the reference drivers. The tweak utilityis also included here.

TV-out is in fact nothing remarkable. The signal can be displayed either on the monitor or on the TV-screen. If youuse the latter, the resolution will be set to 640x480 or 800x600 with 60Hz refresh rate.

Having described the main peculiarities of the graphics cards tested we suggest going over to the benchmarks. Firstof all we would like to mention the testing systems configuration.

Both computers worked in Windows 98. Besides, we also used ViewSonic P810 (21") and Samsung 17GLSi (17") monitors.The tests were run with NVIDIA drivers ver. 3.62 with Vsync disabled.

As usual, we would like to start with 2D graphics. Although we can hardly say anything new here. The differencebetween the performance of the graphics cards described in the first part of our comparison and that of the cardsdescribed today is almost nought. That is why we consider these graphics cards to be on equal footing here. The onlyevident observation is that the graphics cards equipped with a TV-out (such as ELSA Erazor X² reviewed before and LeadtekWinFast GeForce 256 DDR) fall slightly behind. However, the presence of TV-out on ASUS AGP-V6600 Deluxe didn't tell on the2D quality at all. Anyway, the lag is noticeable only at super high resolutions starting from 1600x1200 and up. At lowerresolutions all graphics cards on NVIDIA GeForce 256 show absolutely equal 2D quality. As for us, we felt quite comfortableworking at 1600x1200 with ViewSonic P810 monitor and with any graphics card on NVIDIA GeForce 256 of the listed in our article.We would like to stress that this is our personal opinion and it may not necessarily coincide with the opinion of some designand polygraphy experts.

And for a better and more illustrative comparison we included into the diagrams all the graphics cards based onNVIDIA GeForce 256 considered in this article as well as in Part 1.

It is worth mentioning that the heroes of the present article took the last (ELSA Erazor X) and the first places(ASUS AGP-V6600 Deluxe) among the cards with SDR-memory. However, both ASUS cards performed almost on the same level.Among the testing participants with DDR memory Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 DDR proved the best of all and ELSA ErazorX² fell behind.

As you can see, there are practically no differences compared to the previous chart.

And one more time we see almost the same results. Only Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 managed to win the lead among the cardswith SDR memory.

We can once again point out the evident advantage provided by the DDR memory: as you can see the graphics cards with thismemory type are far ahead of all the rest.

Here we have to mention a relatively significant gap between ELSA Erazor X and the other cards.

In this case the fact that ELSA Erazor X is lagging behind is not so evident but this card is still the last.

It is rather interesting, actually, that at least in this test ELSA Erazor X managed to perform not that bad at higherresolutions having left behind almost all SDR cards except ASUS AGP-V6600 Deluxe.

Well, it's high time we drew a conclusion to Quake3: among the cards with SDR memory the indisputable leaders areboth ASUS cards and among those with DDR memory - Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 DDR. Unfortunately, ELSA Erazor X appearedan outsider almost in every test.

The picture is very similar to what we have seen with Quake3 in general, with the only exception of 1024x768, whereELSA Erazor X managed to make a slight move forward.

In fact, it's pretty interesting that Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 won the first prize among the cards with SDR memory.And as for the DDR cards, nothing changed there.

This time it is Creative 3D Blaster GeForce 256, which turned out an outsider, and the leading position still belongsto ASUS AGP-V6600 (Deluxe).

The summary of Expendable results sounds as follows: ASUS AGP-V6600 Deluxe is the only constant leader among the cardswith SDR memory. Besides that, all the others are constantly moving from one position to another. And as for the cards withDDR memory, it is again Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 DDR.

Let's pass over to Test Drive 6. We will show it on Pentium III system. And to demonstrate the effect achieved fromoverclocking we decided on two most overclockable graphics cards with SDR and DDR memory. Besides, we will also say afew words about the dependence of graphics cards performance on the processor working frequency.

Among the SDR graphics cards you can easily notice that Leadtek Winfast GeForce 256 is the first, and among those withDDR memory we don't see any permanence again and hence can't single out the leader. And overclocking results showed thatif the chipset overclocked well on the card with SDR memory, it might be even possible to surpass the cards with DDR one.

It struck us as pretty curious that the cards with DDR memory didn't leave their SDR fellows far behind in thistest. Moreover, the overall performance drop caused by the shift to 32-bit color turned out a bit lower than in theother tests carried out. In fact, we can't explain this phenomenon. However, the cards remained positioned the sameway as for the 16-bit color regime. And the performance of the overclocked cards once again proved our statement thatif the chipset on the SDR-card is well overclockable, the card's performance may appear even higher than that of acard with DDR memory. Besides, we also saw how beautifully an overclocked card with DDR SGRAM can perform.

And now scalability or the dependence on the CPU frequency. For this diagram we chose one graphics card with SDR memoryand one with DDR memory.

Despite the fact that Intel processor frequency was reduced almost twice we didn't see any tangible performance drop, and athigher resolutions it turned out almost unnoticeable.

Besides, you can also notice that when the working frequency of AMD Athlon got 100MHz lower, the graphics card'sperformance hardly dropped at all.

The conclusions sound almost the same, only at 1600x1200 the graphics cards performed on the same level no matterwhat frequency the CPU worked at.

So, we can say that if the game uses the geometric coprocessor for T&L then in case the CPU frequency is reduced,the performance drop will be not so dramatic as it used to be before and sometimes it will be almost unnoticeable at all.

So what can we conclude about the performance in 3D graphics? Position No 1 belongs to Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256DDR! And the slowest graphics card of all appeared ELSA Erazor X. ASUS graphics cards proved the leaders among the cardswith SDR-memory, and ELSA Erazor X² fell significantly behind all the cards with DDR. Creative graphics cards retainedsome middle position all the time.

Before summing up everything we have revealed here, we would like to say a few words about the quality of 3D graphics.We have already written a lot about it that is why we will simply show you a screenshot from a new Dagoth Moor ZoologicalGarden demo-version:

This demo program is a very good illustration of the image quality you can achieve with all the modern resources of thetoday's graphics accelerators. Among these features we can list the use of a lot of polygons, larger textures and morerealistic vertex lighting. These games will make the future. Everybody is fed up with the washed out 3D pictures! We needclear-cut and realistic 3D scenes. Don't you think so?

Summing up we would like to single out ASUS AGP-V6600 (Deluxe), which takes the lead among the graphics cards withSDR-memory. However, these cards are still not that promising as those with DDR-memory. Only they can give the user tofeel all the beauty of the 32-bit color at a relatively high speed. Here Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 DDR proved the best.Of course, such cards still cost quite a lot of money, however, they are very likely to start getting cheaper pretty soon.Some 1.5 months ago the cards with SDR memory cost about the same, and today for $270-275 you can buy an accelerator whichwill save you time and trouble for minimum a year. And since the price difference between the graphics cards with SDR andDDR memory is constantly getting smaller, the first ones are very likely to slowly sink into oblivion. Of course, we wouldn'trecommend buying DDR cards immediately since there is a tendency towards the reduction of their price. According to somereliable sources, they are about to cost some $200 by the beginning of February.

As far as the other cards are concerned, the resume about ELSA Erazor X sounds not so encouraging, actually, becausethe card fell behind all its competitors. Besides, the revision we had at our disposal was deprived of the praised ChipGuardtechnology. Both Creative cards stopped somewhere in the middle of the rating, although you can often come across some superoverclockable pieces among the cards with DDR-memory.

NVIDIA GeForce 256 Graphics Cards Comparison. Part 2

ELSA Erazor X

ASUS AGP-V6600 Deluxe

Creative 3D Blaster GeForce 256 Annihilator Pro

Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 DDR