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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Tujan - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
But a ''ATI has had its integrated graphics chipsets on the market for over a year"?There are only limited ATI Intel 915 775 based Intel graphics chipsets.Nothing for the Dual-Core Intel based chipsets.
The ATI chipsets for the AMD platform,are not so numerous as well. Of wich ATX does not enter the fray.
Asus has an Intel ATI 775 chipset.Wich is more or less a 915 equivalent.While the war horse from MSI does the AMD side of things.
Maybe,just maybe there is some OEM action wich nobody can see,nor tell of.For example,a large order from a manufacturer HP,Dell etc having been used. Then if Anantech where to resort to taking interest in such obscure OEM scews they would be back to benching HP vrs Dell vrs Emachine etc.
I know your just wanting my wormy head to pop up.Like bait.For what bird,dont know right now.
Have to see about the latest ATI retail chipsets when they come out.They win on AMD on the count of that AMD architecture.Sure they are better graphics than the last generation used on computers PCI and AGP slots. And I cant complain about somebody taking anything but the latest technology. 915/775.
Dont see anything in the retail right now.For ATI.The Saphire board still does not light a search from a retail since a month later now.
Somebody trying to bend my bugle ?
DigitalFreak - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
My head hurts from trying to read that... :-)johnsonx - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link
yeah, ditto that... ouchAquila76 - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link
I'm looking for an all-in-one board for a dual-boot personal web server/Old-skool gaming box, and this helped a lot. I'll probably go for the 6100 based board, as my main rig is an nForce4 and I'll keep parts 'all in the family'.One more thing (off topic): If I see that 64 second film contest 'waitlessness' guy floating on my screen one more time, I'm going to find where he lives and kill his family in front of him. That has got to be the single most annoying ad EVER. Who is the ad wizard who decided: "Yeah! Let's float our add across the ENTIRE SCREEN! That'll get noticed!"? DIAF, you rat-bastard!
knisch - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link
I know this seems stupid but I really want a matx board that performs at nForce4 Ultra levels w/ sata 300 and all that jazz. Is the 6100 that board? If I throw a GeForce 6800 in that thing can I expect to see the same performance as on a nForce4 Ultra?If so this would be a great way to get into 939 for me. I can live with games on my socket A for a while and use the integrated graphics until I have enough dough for a nice pci-e video card.
johnsonx - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link
This is such a board, though perhaps you would be better to wait for a board with the 430 Southbridge, rather than the 410 as this one has. That one gets you 4 SATA-300 ports rather than 2, more RAID levels, and Gigabit ethernet.Like this one:
http://www.foxconnchannel.com/products_motherboard...">
This also has the higher-clocked 6150 GFX... I dunno if you can actually buy this anywhere yet, but surely it will be available soon.
Foxconn does also have some MicroATX regular NForce4 boards, but none with SATA-300.
knisch - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link
Thanks. I think I will be making a purchase as soon as a decent 430 based board comes out.johnsonx - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link
Not sure why the link disappeared there... let's try again:http://www.foxconnchannel.com/products_motherboard...">http://www.foxconnchannel.com/products_motherboard...
HarbingerM - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link
The ATI board can very alot if it is useing a mix of side port and Hypermemory. The review does not say which. I notic alot of the ati board do not have any side port but the jetway a210gdms-prohttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...
has 32M. It wil effect the test and senice most board do not have this feature it be nice to see the test with side port on and with it off. That will help to compare but right now the 6100 has the lower price :-). But if the side port helps to lower cpu and system memory overhead it might be worth it.
Wesley Fink - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link
There is no sideport memory on the Grouper board. The earlier RS480 Reference for Integrated Graphics did have 16MB of sideport memory, but Grouper is a later board without sideport memory - UMA only.As stated in the launch review and nVidia press kits, the GeForce 61xx will ONLY support UMA or shared memory. It will NOT support dedicated memory.
We examined the effect of sideport memory in the RS480 launch, and Anand reported the small impact of sideport memory on performance. You can review those results at http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?....