BUDGET VIDEO CARD ROUNDUP 2003

"In this article we compare four budget (sub £80) video cards which are the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440, Visiontek , 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."

GENERAL SYSTEM INFORMATION

PROCESSOR	AMD ATHLON XP 1700
VIDEO CARD	GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX 440
	VISIONTEK GEFORCE3
	SAPPHIRE RADEON 9000
	SAPPHIRE RADEON 9000 PRO
ATI DRIVER	CATALYST v3.1
NVIDIA DRIVER	FORCEWARE v43.45
MOTHERBOARD	ASUS A7S333
MEMORY	512MB SAMSUNG PC2100 DDR
OPERATING SYSTEM	WINDOWS XP SERVICE PACK 1
DIRECTX VERSION	v9.0

QUAKE III ARENA
2x FSAA

640x480

	165
	147
	173
	160

800x600

	129
	103
	149
	118

1024x768

	86
	65
	98
	75

GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX 440 SAPPHIRE RADEON 9000
VISIONTEK 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 gave a great performance and managed to beat both of the Radeon 9000's. After the close results the Sapphire Radeon 9000 delivered to the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 in the last test I expected a close result. However that wasn't to be and the Sapphire Radeon 9000 lost badly to the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440. The Visiontek GeForce3 gave a great performance and it beat both of the Sapphire Radeon 9000's by a healthy margin. The Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro gave pretty much the same poor result as the Sapphire Radeon 9000, it was easily beaten by the GainwardGeForce4 MX 440 and the Visiontek GeForce3 at all of the resolutions tested."

QUAKE III ARENA
4x FSAA

640x480

	95
	88
	157
	102

800x600

	66
	58
	116
	67

1024x768

	44
	28
	68
	44

GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX 440 SAPPHIRE RADEON 9000
VISIONTEK 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 - "It was a close result between the Gainward GeForce MX 440 and the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro however the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 easily beat the Sapphire Radeon 9000. The Sapphire Radeon 9000 gave a poor performance and there is nothing more to say. I think the chart speaks for itself, the Visiontek GeForce3 won this by a large margin, impressive. I expected the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro to be competing with the Visiontek GeForce3, however it ended up being closer to the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440."

QUAKE III ARENA
4x FSAA 2x AF

640x480

	81
	74
	135
	98

800x600

	58
	49
	93
	65

1024x768

	39
	25
	56
	34

GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX 440 SAPPHIRE RADEON 9000
VISIONTEK 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 - "The Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 gave a good performance and beat the Sapphire Radeon 9000 at all resolutions and even the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro at 1024x768. The Sapphire Radeon 9000 offered only average performance this time and slumped into last place again. As expected the Visiontek GeForce3 wins this round again by an impressive margin. Another let down by the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro, it's performance was once again closer to the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 than the Visiontek GeForce3."

QUAKE III ARENA
ANISOTROPIC

2x ANISOTROPIC

	124
	137
	130
	153

8x ANISOTROPIC

	N/A
	132
	108
	149

16x ANISOTROPIC

	N/A
	131
	N/A
	148

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 - "The Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 is only able to do 2x anisotropic filtering and even then it's performance is lacking. The Sapphire Radeon 9000 gave a great performance, it beat the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 and even the Visiontek GeForce3 at 4x anisotropic filtering. The Visiontek GeForce3 is only able to do 2x, 4x and 8x anisotropic filtering and as you can see the performance hit is much larger than for the Sapphire Radeon 9000 and 9000 Pro. A great performance by the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro, even using 16x anisotropic filtering the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro was able to beat the Visiontek GeForce3 using any anisotropic filtering level."

RETURN TO CASTLE WOLFENSTEIN

800x600

	140
	138
	143
	142

1024x768

	116
	115
	122
	126

1280x1024

	100
	97
	105
	109

GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX 440 SAPPHIRE RADEON 9000
VISIONTEK GEFORCE3 SAPPHIRE RADEON 9000 PRO

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
IXBT Benchmark
High Quality Setting
Geometric Detail High
Texture Detail High
Texture Quality 32Bit
Trilinear Filtering
Simple Shaders Disabled
Compressed Textures Disabled
Light Flares Enabled
Wall Marks Enabled
Dynamic Lights Enabled
Identify Target Enabled
Sync Every Frame Disabled
Simple Items Disabled

COMMENT - "The Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 gave a good solid performance staying ahead of the Sapphire Radeon 9000 and within 10fps of the leaders. Once again the Sapphire Radeon 9000 loses out to the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440, although not by much this time. A good performance by the Visiontek GeForce3, won the first test and then stayed within 4fps of the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro. A very close result between the four video cards but however the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro is the winner."