BUDGET VIDEO CARD ROUNDUP 2003

"In this article we compare four budget (sub £80) video cards which are the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440, Visiontek GeForce3, Sapphire Radeon 9000 and Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro. They were tested using the powerfull AMD Athlon XP 1700 (Thoroughbred) processor and Asus A7S333 (SIS745) motherboard. Software used for benchmarking was 3dmark 2001 SE, Quake 3 Arena, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Serious Sam SE and Unreal Tournament 2003."

GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX 440

"The Gainward GeForce4 video card offers the most advanced 3D technology. Featuring Gainward's High-performance hardware design specially developed to take the most advantage of the ultra fast memory. Another important key feature of Gainward GeForce4 PowerPack! Pro series are its High-Definition Video Processor, which enables a variety of crystal-clear HDTV solutions when combined with a mainstream CPU and a low-cost DTV receiver. The Gainward GeForce4 uses the nVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 chipset running at 270mhz and with 64MB 4ns DDR memory running at 400mhz."

VISIONTEK GEFORCE3

"The Visiontek GeForce3 features the NV20 core running at 200mhz and it has 64mb memory running at 460mhz which delivers 7.36 MB bandwidth. The Visiontek GeForce3 features a wide range of new technologies which are:- nfiniteFXTM Engine - Enables dynamic, breakthrough effects, which deliver the next leap in realism to 3D graphics. Users will experience a virtually infinite number of special effects via the Vertex Shader and Pixel Shader engine components. Vertex Shader - Injects personality into characters and scenes by allowing characters to move and show facial emotion, materials to stretch, and scenes to come alive. Pixel Shader - Creates ambiance with materials and surfaces that mimic reality. Pixel shaders alter lighting and surface effects that replace artificial, computerized looks with high-impact organic surfaces. Lightspeed Memory ArchitectureTM - Makes the fastest GPU ever produced, and generates the power to deliver earth-shattering performance at all resolutions. High-Resolution Antialiasing (HRAA) - Produces the best visual quality and performance for all applications. HRAA delivers a high level of detail and crisp, clean lines at high frame rates, featuring the Quincunx AA mode."

SAPPHIRE RADEON 9000

"The Sapphire Radeon 9000 delivers the most advanced features, thereby increasing the lifespan of your PC by integrating early adoption of tomorrow’s technologies and still remaining affordable. Reanimate those titles of old with features such as Trueform™, Smartshader™ and Smoothvision™. The Sapphire Radeon 9000 features 64MB DDR memory to accelerate the latest 3D games, 128-bit DDR memory interface provides end users with fast graphics performance, Support for AGP2X/4X, Quad-pipe architecture: Four parallel rendering pipelines to power the most challenging applications with amazing speed, Programmable pixel and vertex shaders: Smartshader™ technology takes advantage of the advanced new features in DirectX® 8.1 and means even the newest and most advanced 3D games will be fully supported and High-Performance Anisotropic Filtering: Radeon™ 9000 delivers excellent image quality with Smoothvision."

"The Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro supports all of today’s features and blazes a trail for the adoption of tomorrow’s technologies. Possessing the power to sow detail rich environments, with features such as Trueform™, Smartshader™ and Smoothvision™, enjoy tomorrow’s technology today. Best-of-class* 3D Gaming Performance, Powered by Ati's Radeon™ 9000 Pro graphics technology, Four parallel, highly optimized rendering pipelines deliver fastest gaming performance in its class, Features up to 128MB of DDR memory to accelerate all popular 3D games, Advanced visual quality, Smartshader™ technology supports DirectX® 8.1 and enables more complex and realistic lighting effects, Smoothvision™ full-scene anti-aliasing technology delivers smoother-looking images, Progressive anisotropic filtering technology provides sharp and clear textures without sacrificing frame rates, Industry-leading video technology and software support, Features Video Immersion™ II technology for unprecedented video quality, Fullstream™, ATI's new video acceleration technology enhances the quality of video by removing blocky artifacts and delivering smoother-looking content at all resolutions, Supports dual display configurations with Hydravision™ software and Catalyst™ software provides industry's most stable 3D acceleration support."

COMMENT - "The Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 puts in a good performance but it's lack of Pixel Shaders means it's final score is much lower than the other video cards. The Visiontek GeForce3 delivered the highest score and the best game results. The only faults are the poor Vertex Shader and Pixel Shader performance. The Sapphire Radeon 9000 had average game results however the Sapphire Radeon 9000 performed well in the Pixel and Vertex Shader tests. The Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro although beaten by the Visiontek GeForce3 it still performed very well. As seen with the Sapphire Radeon 9000 the Vertex Shader and Pixel Shader performance is excellent with the ATI Radeon 9000 GPU."

QUAKE III ARENA 800x600 174 174 174 174 1024x768 141 140 161 155 1280x1024 120 117 145 134 GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX 440 SAPPHIRE RADEON 9000 VISIONTEK GEFORCE3 SAPPHIRE RADEON 9000 PRO BENCHMARK SETTINGS Four.dm68 Benchmark 32Bit Colour Depth Texture Compress Disabled Lightmap Lighting High Geometric Detail Full Texture Detail Trilinear Texture Filtering COMMENT - "Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 delivered a good solid performance with very playable frame rates. Sapphire Radeon 9000 lost to the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 but the difference was very small. Visiontek GeForce3 gave great performance and managed to finish 11fps ahead of the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro at 1280x1024 resolution. Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro finished second to the Visiontek GeForce3 but it was a fairly close."