PERFORMANCE UPDATE: NVIDIA GeForce 6100 vs. ATI RS482
by Wesley Fink on October 6, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Our Take
Re-benching the ATI RS482 did not suddenly move the ATI chipset to the front in performance, but it does demonstrate that the ATI RS482 and the NVIDIA GeForce 6100 perform about the same in most benchmarks. The performance is certainly close enough that OEM's will have no overriding reason to choose one or the other chipsets based on a performance advantage. The good news is that buyers can choose either solution based on price or features and get pretty comparable results. NVIDIA has closed the integrated graphics performance gap, but they haven't surged ahead as many expected.
Either the ATI Radeon Xpress 200, with the new RS482 core, or the NVIDIA GeForce 6100 will provide business users, internet browsers, and casual computer users with competent graphics. Both chipsets do a decent job in most of the things for which we use our computers. Where both chipsets fail is with recent gaming. They can provide playable frame rates on all but the most demanding games at low resolutions with "eye-candy" turned off, but they will disappoint any serious gamer.
Sometimes we as reviewers make too much of that fact. Not everyone's dream is to run Fear on an Apple 30" Cinema with two 7800GTX or a Crossfire X1800 setup. Most users will find the graphics capabilities on both these chipsets pretty decent compared to the other choices in today's integrated graphics market. That is not to say that AnandTech readers will be happy, because they won't. But parents, grandparents, children, and siblings will find these integrated graphics just fine for web-browsing and e-mail. If they start buying more recent games, however, they will likely need a new graphics card.
It should also be pointed out that NVIDIA is just introducing AMD integrated graphics for the Athlon 64, while ATI has had competent integrated graphics solutions for both AMD Athlon 64 and Intel Socket 775 platforms for over a year. The great majority of integrated graphics boards are now based on the Intel platform, where NVIDIA does not yet offer an integrated graphics solution. That fact alone will keep ATI as a bigger player in the integrated graphics market.
While we are happy with the higher performance of both NVIDIA and ATI, this is not to say that integrated graphics have arrived. Who would really want to play Doom 3 at 24FPS at 800x600 - and that's with no eye candy? However, by lowering detail and resolution, you should be able to find a playable 640x480 or 800x600 with either the ATI or NVIDIA chipsets in most games. Nonetheless, if you want better detail or higher resolution, you will need to use a discrete video card with better performance.
Re-benching the ATI RS482 did not suddenly move the ATI chipset to the front in performance, but it does demonstrate that the ATI RS482 and the NVIDIA GeForce 6100 perform about the same in most benchmarks. The performance is certainly close enough that OEM's will have no overriding reason to choose one or the other chipsets based on a performance advantage. The good news is that buyers can choose either solution based on price or features and get pretty comparable results. NVIDIA has closed the integrated graphics performance gap, but they haven't surged ahead as many expected.
Either the ATI Radeon Xpress 200, with the new RS482 core, or the NVIDIA GeForce 6100 will provide business users, internet browsers, and casual computer users with competent graphics. Both chipsets do a decent job in most of the things for which we use our computers. Where both chipsets fail is with recent gaming. They can provide playable frame rates on all but the most demanding games at low resolutions with "eye-candy" turned off, but they will disappoint any serious gamer.
Sometimes we as reviewers make too much of that fact. Not everyone's dream is to run Fear on an Apple 30" Cinema with two 7800GTX or a Crossfire X1800 setup. Most users will find the graphics capabilities on both these chipsets pretty decent compared to the other choices in today's integrated graphics market. That is not to say that AnandTech readers will be happy, because they won't. But parents, grandparents, children, and siblings will find these integrated graphics just fine for web-browsing and e-mail. If they start buying more recent games, however, they will likely need a new graphics card.
It should also be pointed out that NVIDIA is just introducing AMD integrated graphics for the Athlon 64, while ATI has had competent integrated graphics solutions for both AMD Athlon 64 and Intel Socket 775 platforms for over a year. The great majority of integrated graphics boards are now based on the Intel platform, where NVIDIA does not yet offer an integrated graphics solution. That fact alone will keep ATI as a bigger player in the integrated graphics market.
While we are happy with the higher performance of both NVIDIA and ATI, this is not to say that integrated graphics have arrived. Who would really want to play Doom 3 at 24FPS at 800x600 - and that's with no eye candy? However, by lowering detail and resolution, you should be able to find a playable 640x480 or 800x600 with either the ATI or NVIDIA chipsets in most games. Nonetheless, if you want better detail or higher resolution, you will need to use a discrete video card with better performance.
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johnsonx - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
Since the only testing we have for Xpress 200 with Sideport Memory was done nearly a year ago on pre-release reference hardware, with early drivers and on only 2 games at one resolution, perhaps some new tests are in order? (as always, easy for me to say since I don't have to do any of the work!)The complete AMD integrated video test, which would be very informative:
Socket 939 & 754 GeForce6100
Socket 939 & 754 GeForce6150
Socket 939 & 754 Xpress200
Socket 939 & 754 Xpress200 w/32Mb Sideport (UMA interleaved)
Socket 754 K8M800
Socket 754 760GX
For processors, it should be Sempron64 2600+ (on 754), Athlon64 3200+ (on both 754 & 939), and finally Athlon64 4000+ (on 939). That'd be two CPUs for each board.
So that's 20 board/cpu/video memory configurations. No sweat, right?
What's the point of all this testing? Simple. Which platform gives the best integrated gfx performance and which gives the best integrated graphics value? Is the ATI Sideport Memory worth the added cost ($20) vs UMA alone?
DigitalFreak - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link
Wesley,Any idea when the 6150 based boards will be available? Also, any info on DFI 6150 boards?
johnsonx - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link
Yeah, you're right... the JetWay RS480 PRO boards all have 32Mb of dedicated video RAM.Anandtech, please test!
Is there any info on whether GeForce 6100 boards can or will be equipped with dedicated RAM as well?
Cybercat - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the reference grouper board they were using did have a small bit of dedicated memory onboard.And since NVIDIA was the first with the memory fetching technique (TurboCache) I would think they could do it with their chipset as well. However it may be that TurboCache isn't a completely driver-enabled feature like HyperMemory is with ATI. The other problem is that in order to incorporate some dedicated memory, it requires quite a bit of extra space on the board, and when dealing with mini-ATX, you don't have a lot of space to work with. Many board makers don't see the speed boost as a worthwhile justification for the extra leveraging they would have to do, considering that most onboard is only there for 2D functionality primarily, with little consideration for 3D performance given the sort of market the chipset is aimed at.
johnsonx - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link
As near as I can tell from consulting several past AT articles concerning the Grouper reference board, it looks like it does NOT have Sideport memory. The original Bullhead board did have 16Mb sideport memory, and the AT article for that board even included benches of various memory configs (http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">here). None of the articles that mention the Grouper board mention Sideport, and I don't see any memory chips in the photos of the Grouper board (or of the Sapphire Pure Innovation board, which follows the Grouper reference design). The chip was easy to spot on the original Bullhead board photos, as they are on the Jetway board photos.Perhaps Wesley could clarify whether the Grouper board being tested does or does not have Sideport memory?
DigitalFreak - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link
Read the article Wesley referred to. You gain at most 2 fps with the 16MB of sideport memory on the ATI board.johnsonx - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link
if 2d is the only issue, save your money and buy Via K8M800 or SiS 760GX... ATI and Nvidia market these things as 3d, and they do a pretty competent job of it as well.as to all the extra space required, it appears to be only 2 small memory chips. They're almost tough to spot on the Jetway Pro boards.
HarbingerM - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link
So it looks like they are compareing a $75 tforce 6100 vs $95 Xpress 200http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/Wishlist/WishS...">http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/Wis...700496&a...
That so with price added the 6100 dose not look that bad compared to geting a xpress 200 with sideport. If they would test it UMA only then I think the 6100 might be much more ahead. Toms did some testing with the 3 setings of sideport memory and thier board only had 16M and there was a noticable difrence in game and in GUI because of not stealing all of the cpu memory bandwith. With the price difrence of $20 it is hard to go with the xpress200 it lacks so much. And if the benchmarks where on a board with 32M sideport it make the tforce6100 that much better. If not it put them at the same preformance level. So that only the features like full speed USB and SATA300.
yacoub - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link
Worst photoshop of a "2" ever.Wesley Fink - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link
I was embarrassed by my "2" so I redid it :-) At the last minute ATI told me they didn't have any usable images of the RS482, so I did a 2-minute improvise. After your comment I did it as it should have been in Photoshop.