BUDGET VIDEO CARD ROUNDUP 2003

"In this article we compare four budget (sub £80) video cards which are the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440, Visiontek GeForce3GeForce3, 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

SERIOUS SAM SE

800x600

	127
	111
	131
	122

1024x768

	104
	106
	124
	116

1280x1024

	88
	102
	116
	110

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

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Elephant Atrium
Fullscreen Enabled
Extreme Quality Settings
Large Texture Size
Optimal Texture Quality
Detail Textures Enabled

COMMENT - "The Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 starts off strongly in second place but manages to finish last, a poor performance. Sapphire Radeon 9000 manages good performance across all of the resolutions. Not a huge victory but the Visiontek GeForce3GeForce3 managed to win every resolution. The Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro stayed in second behind the Visiontek GeForce3GeForce3."

UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2003 FLYBY

800x600

	86
	77
	107
	86

1024x768

	59
	51
	78
	57

1280x1024

	40
	33
	55
	37

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

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Antalus Benchmark
Character Shadows Enabled
Decals Enabled
Dynamic Lighting Enabled
Detail Textures Enabled
Projectors Enabled
Foliage Enabled

COMMENT - "A good performance by the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440, it easily beat the Sapphire Radeon 9000 and was very close to the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro. The Sapphire Radeon 9000 delivered a poor result and finished last in all of the resolutions tested. Another great performance by the Visiontek GeForce3, it's clearly faster than the other video cards which is impressive. The Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro finished way behind the Visiontek GeForce3 and only slightly ahead of the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 which made for a disappointing result."

UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2003 BOTMATCH

800x600

	39
	38
	41
	41

1024x768

	37
	34
	40
	39

1280x1024

	28
	24
	34
	27

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

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Antalus Benchmark
Character Shadows Enabled
Decals Enabled
Dynamic Lighting Enabled
Detail Textures Enabled
Projectors Enabled
Foliage Enabled

COMMENT - "A good solid result for the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440, finished ahead of the Sapphire Radeon 9000 at all of the resolutions tested. Another poor result for the Sapphire Radeon 9000, finished in last place again. The Visiontek GeForce3 is clearly the better video card for Unreal Tournament 2003, was the only video card to get 30+ fps at 1280x1024. The Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro started off strongly but at 1280x1024 lost to the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 but only by 1fps."

AMD ATHLON XP 2000
PERFORMANCE

QUAKE 3 ARENA

	161
	165
	155
	157

RETURN TO CASTLE WOLFENSTEIN

	122
	130
	126
	129

SERIOUS SAM SE

	124
	130
	116
	122

UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2003 BOTMATCH

	40
	45
	39
	45

VISIONTEK GEFORCE3 (XP1700) VISIONTEK GEFORCE3 (XP2000)
SAPPHIRE R9000 PRO (XP1700) SAPPHIRE R9000 PRO (XP2000)

COMMENT - "We have selected the Visiontek GeForce3 and Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro to be tested with the AMD Athlon XP 2000 processor which is 13% faster than the AMD Athlon XP 1700. With Quake 3 Arena using the Athlon XP 2000 processor results in a 3% gain for the Visiontek GeForce3 and a 2% gain for the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro. Using the Athlon XP 2000 with Return to Castle Wolfenstein results in a 7% gain for the Visiontek GeForce3 and a 3% gain for the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro. Using the Athlon XP 2000 with Serious Sam SE results in a 5% gain for the Visiontek GeForce3 and a 5% gain for the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro. Using the Athlon XP 2000 with Unreal Tournament 2003 using Botmatch results in a 12% gain for the Visiontek GeForce3 and a 14% gain for the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro. The Visiontek GeForce3 and Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro video cards both gained performance from the faster processor but not the expected 13% performance gain."

FINAL RESULT

	1399
	1357
	1576
	1475

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

COMMENT - "The Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 gave good performance considering it's a budget video card and won it's battle against the Sapphire Radeon 9000. The Sapphire Radeon 9000 delivered only average performance and usually finished behind the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 so it's a disappointing result. The Visiontek GeForce3 finished 101fps ahead of the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro to claim first place. Although the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro came second it's performance was pretty hit and miss."

CONCLUSION - "It was an interesting result, the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 and Visiontek GeForce3 both won their battles against the Sapphire Radeon 9000 and Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro. It wasn't an easy victory for the Nvidia cards and the performance of the Sapphire Radeon 9000 and Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 was close. However the Visiontek GeForce3 was shown to be clearly superior to the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Pro apart from when anisotropic filtering. The performance of 2x and 4x fsaa was clearly superior with the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 and the Visiontek GeForce3. The downside for the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 is it's lack of Pixel Shaders which limited it's score with 3dmark 2001 SE. However it was seen that the lack of this feature didn't limit it's performance in games."