GeForce3 vs. Voodoo5 6000

Though NVIDIA hasn't released GeForce3 cards to market owing to immature driver, we could know the outline what performance GeForce3 will give us in running contents today by summing up those benchmarking results obtained with beta drivers. The fact that 3D graphics performance of a system is determined by video card on high screen resolution and color depth enables us to summary data obtained from different systems. As is showed in Table 1, the powers of CPUs in those systems are different markedly, while all the systems that equipped with same GeForce3 video card have almost the same performance at the resolution higher than 800x600.

The antialiasing performance (Table 2.) is the most shining point of GeForce3. Under the antialiasing modes, GeForce3 runs +50% faster than GeForce2 Ultra on most of the time (Table 3.). The performance of GeForce3 under non-antialiasing mode is less inflammatory. Among the contents that have been tested, GeForce3 runs Quake3 with the best performance boost over GeForce2 Ultra under the high screen resolutions (Table 4.).

GeForce3 can be preordered at a price of about $550 now. Is the GeForce3 worth the price? Whatever is your opinion now, you may like to see some comparing results concerning the performances of GeForce3 and Voodoo5 6000, a video card that is unavailable in the retail channel and has once be suggested a retail price of $600 several months ago. Though the data in Figure 1 were obtained from different systems, we can compare them validly on high screen resolution according to the fact that has been indicated and confirmed in the first paragraph. Under antialiasing modes, GeForce3 gets ahead Voodoo5 6000 by +18% to +41%. Voodoo5 6000 has a memory bandwidth of 10.6GB/s, while GeForce3 has 7.4GB/s only. It is obviously that the Lightspeed Memory Architecture makes GeForce3 surpass Voodoo5 6000. Is it a good deal to get a GeForce3 that is not only faster than Voodoo5 6000 but also having extra features such as hardware T&L and DirectX 8.0 compliance with a lower price? And for your entertainment, here are some Voodoo5 6000 card pictures and a 8xFSAA screenshot grasped from the net.

Table 1. Benchmarking results of Quake3 ( 32bit color depth ) antialiasing performance

Quake3 Performance	800x600	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
GeForce3 2xFSAA	134* / 122**	83* / 85** / 85^# / 85^##	50* / 50**	32 */
GeForce3 Quincunx AA	133* / 109**	70* / 71** / 71^# / 72^##	42* / 42**	27* /
GeForce3 4xFSAA	133* / 90**	52* / 51** / 51^# / 51^##	28* / 27**	/

Table 2. Quake3 ( 32bit color depth ) antialiasing performance of GeForce3

Quake3 Performance	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
GeForce3 2xFSAA	85	50	32
GeForce3 Quincunx AA	71	42	27
GeForce3 4xFSAA	51	28

Table 3. Quake3 ( 32bit color depth ) antialiasing performance boots of GeForce3 over GeForce2 Ultra*

Performance Boost %	800x600	1024x768	1280x1024
GeForce3 2xFSAA / GeForce2 Ultra 2xFSAA	+49%	+64%	+56%
GeForce3 Quincunx AA / GeForce2 Ultra 4xFSAA	+110%	+115%	+110%
GeForce3 4xFSAA / GeForce2 Ultra 4xFSAA	+73%	+55%	+35%

* http://www.digit-life.com/articles/gf3/q3-32-aa.gif

Table 4. Quake3 ( 32bit color depth ) performance boots of GeForce3 over GeForce2 Ultra

GeForce3 / GeForce2 Ultra Performance Boost %	800x600	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
rivastation	-0.7%	+8.7%	+21.8%	+28.8%
gamestar	+0.9%	+2.0%	+19.0%	/
pcpro	-2.3%	+9.3%	+10.1%	+10.9%
digit-life	-0.7%	+9.4%	+29.9%	/
Average Boost%	-1%	+7%	+20%	+20%