The Magnificent Seven: GeForce3 Board Round-up

Test Methodology And Configuration

We ran two parallel testing platforms - one was an Athlon 1200 system and the other was a Pentium 4 platform clocked at 1500 MHz. Note: these benchmarks are not intended as a comparison between two competing CPUs.

We pretty much limited our resolution settings to 1024x768 and the real bandwidth-chomper 1600x1200. The only time 1600x1200 wasn't possible was during the 3DMark tests. In their stead, we've listed results obtained with 1280x1024.

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In this test we used factory-supplied drivers, i.e. The manufacturers' drivers and not the NVIDIA reference driver. Anyone wanting to use the NVIDIA driver will probably lose the manufacturer's add-on tabs.

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Hardware
CPU AMD platformAMD Athlon 1200 MHz/133 MHz FSB (DDR)
CPU Intel platformIntel Pentium 4 1500 MHz/400 MHz FSB (quad-pumped)
SDRAM2x 128 MB DDR SDRAM
Hard disk12 GB, ST313021A, DMA 66, (Seagate)5400 U/min, 512 kB Cache
MotherboardASUS A7M266
GeForce3 Graphics cards
GeForce2 GTSv12.00 Ref.
GeForce2 PROv12.00 Ref.
GeForce2 ULTRAv12.00 Ref.
ASUS AGP - V8200ASUS v12.10 Beta
Visiontek GF3v12.00 Ref.
ELSA GLADIAC 920ELSA v12.40 Beta
Hercules 3DP 3v12.00 Ref. (Vendor driver n/a)
Gainward CARDEXp.Gainward Driver Release v12.00
Leadtek WinFast GF3Leadtek Driver Release v12.00
MSI StarForce 822MSI Drivers Release v12.00
Driver and Software
IDE/AGP driverVIA 4 in 1 V4.29 Final
DirectX Version8.0a
Operating SystemsWindows 98 SE, Version 4.10.2222 A
Benchmarks and Settings
Quake III ArenaRetail Version 1.16command line = +set cd_nocd 1 +set s_initsound 0Graphics detail set to 'Normal'Benchmark using 'Q3DEMO1'
EvolvaDirectX 7, T&L
MDK2OpenGL, HW Lighting
Aquamarkv2.1 DirectX 8, T&L, Pixel & Vertex ShaderGeForce3 Settings: Pixel Shader = YESGeForce2 Settings: Pixel Shader = NO
Quake 3v1.17 OpenGL, HW TransformationNorm Setting: Quake 3 Standard NormalHQ+T Setting: Quake 3 High Quality & Max. Texture Resolution
DroneZOpenGL, Pixel & Vertex ShaderGeForce3 Settings: GeForce3 BumpGeForce2 Settings: GeForce2 Bump (n/a)
MBTRv1.09 DirectX 7, No T&LSettings: TNT/GeForce, Ansiotropic
3D Mark 2000v1.1 DirectX 7 T&LSettings: T&L, Athlon 3D Now
3D Mark 2001DirectX 8 T&L, Pixel & Vertex ShaderGeForce3 Settings: Pure HW T&L, Athlon 3DNowGeForce2 Settings: T&L, Athlon 3DNow