I was planning on doing a plain old comparison between a Geforce2 MX and a Geforce SDR, but ATI were nice enough to send me a Radeon 32mb DDR for reviewing :) This spiced up my review a little and I decided that a bit of a Radeon review and card round-up was in order...

Cards Used:

Leadtek Geforce 256 32mb (SDR)
Sparkle Geforce2 MX 32mb (SDR)
Creative Geforce2 GTS 32mb (DDR)
ATI Radeon 32mb (DDR)

If you notice, we have very nice comparison offers here. By comparing the Geforce and Geforce2 SDR's, we can compare how much better the CORE is and not combined core/memory, as the memory is of the same speed and type. We also have the two performance cards to battle it out, the GTS and the Radeon, both sporting DDR ram.

ATI Radeon 32mb

When handed this card, I had heard mixed thoughts from people. Some people said it kicked the GTS's ass, others said it was just under the performance or the GTS and others where arguing on what the actual memory frequencies were. What I did know was that ATI have never really been a key figure in the 3D performance market (in my eyes and many others) - instead ATI have always been relied on as cards if you don't play many games, use along side a voodoo 2 or own a laptop.

The card looks very similar to any normal 3d card. When I put it in, it booted fine and Windows ME loaded. Windows ME doesn't come with any drivers for the Radeon, so I used to the CD which came with it (the most up to date). Once restarted I noticed a problem, every time I load windows, there is a 2 minute hang once everything is loaded. This I could only really suggest would be a driver problem (Update: Now fixed with newer drivers). The first thing I did was load Quake 1. I was instantly quite disappointed - the image quality was not as nice as I was used to with Nvidia/Voodoo cards. I can only put this down to a Quake compatibility with the drivers. Quake 3 and other games on the other hand had good quality images and ran most admirably.

One thing I noticed about this card, is it's cool running. The Nvidia cards are well known for there large heat generation, my Geforce SDR even when cooled my a socket 7 cooler was running at 50+c (far too hot for my liking). This chip using a PUNY heatsink, was producing next to no heat. For people with case temperature problems, this card might be a great help.

The Radeon was an OEM card and had a default clock setting of 166/166. Using Powerstrip, I got the RAM running at 210 which is quite good compared to the 185 I got out my MX. The core however, Powerstrip didn't seem to work with this card - perhaps a software update is in hand.

The Test System

Abit BE6
Celeron 600@900
Iwill Slotket II
IBM 30gb Deskstar
128mb PC100 CAS2
e.t.c

Test Number 1 - Quake 3

I always find Quake 3 a good benchmarker - people can compare the results easily to their own, it doesn't use any synthetic benchmarks, and gives a good everyday performance level. I ran it with all details e.t.c on full. All Nvidia cards where using Detonator 3 (6.18). FSAA was switched off and Vsync. The graphs below show FPS (larger is better).

I think the graphs say enough for themselves. If you look at 640x480, the Radeon actually gets a slower result than the MX and Geforce SDR- Later on at the higher resolutions, the limiting SDR ram, lets the Radeon with it's DDR ram take the lead over them.

It is quite obvious the Radeon is what I would call a "performance card" , i.e good speed at high resolution, unlike the SDR cards. But it is still a way behind the GTS in performance.

Test 2 - AGP Bus Speed

For people using BX chipsets and a 133mhz+ bus speed - this test is very important to you. Using an unlocked PII 233 chip, I could test the tolerance of these cards at high bus speeds. Remembering of course, that results vary from card to card.

Highest Possible Speed

ATI Radeon - 120mhz (120 1/1)
Geforce 2 MX - 89mhz (133 2/3)
Geforce 2 GTS - 89mhz (133 2/3)
Geforce SDR - 112mhz (112 1/1)

Remembering that my Geforce SDR was quite well cooled in comparison to the GTS and MX, this may have helped achieve higher AGP stability. Other tricks such as taking the fan off the cards power and using an external supply and increasing I/O voltage where NOT used, so these tricks may help you. Either way I would certainly crown the ATI Radeon as the KING of AGP bus speed stability.

Conclusion

Of the two budget cards - the MX and Geforce SDR, they both performed very well at lower resolutions, keeping up with the big guys. At 800x600 and 1024x768, the MX was about 20% faster than the SDR. At 1280x1024, the RAM was such a bottleneck both performances where just as bad as each other. If you have got a Geforce SDR at the moment, don't think that an upgrade to an MX will give you a big increase in performance. But the MX is good value for money.

Between the GTS and Radeon, the difference is a bit clearer. The GTS is faster than the Radeon. This is helped by the maturity of the Nvidia drivers compared to ATI's. With better drivers, perhaps the Radeon can get nearer to the performance of the GTS. Other factors to take into account when summing up which to buy are 1) The Radeon's low heat generation; 2) The Radeons stability at a high AGP Bus; 3) Price - The Radeon is about £150 +vat, the GTS is about £175 +vat.

Thanks to ATI for supplying me with the Radeon and producing a good contender in the performance card market.

Spode