Benchmarking
Setup
Hardware
| CPU(s) |
AMD
Athlon XP 1800+ (1533 MHz) |
| Heatsink
& Fan | |
| Motherboard(s) |
|
| Memory |
256 MB DDR PC2100 (266 MHz) |
| Hard
Drive(s) | Western
Digital 27 GB ATA66 |
|
CD-ROM |
EPO
50x, Philips 8x CDRW |
| Sound
Card | On
board 3D Surround (AC97 Codec) |
| Video
Card | |
Software
| Operating
System | Windows
2000 Professional SP-2 |
| Video
/ VIA Drivers |
nVidia 28.32 drivers / VIA 4.38(2)v(a) 4-in-1 drivers |
| | Benchmarking
Applications |
| OpenGL |
Quake
III Arena |
| DirectX |
Microsoft
DirectX 8.1 |
| Other |
Madonion
3DMark 2000 v1.1, 3D Mark 2001 |
We
soldier on with the AthlonXP 1800+. Yes there are faster CPUs available from AMD
but they haven't cared to send us an update for our lab. Entering the configuratoin
is the X-Micro GeForce4 MX440 which was overclocked to 330 MHz core and 460 MHz
memory. At $149 this is quite a good performing video card.
The
Latest 4 in 1 drivers resolve some video install issues - and uninstall apparently.
The 28.32 Nvidia drivers are the latest approved version and are a nice progression.
Obviously driver support is one of the big reasons to get an Nvidia sourced card.
I've
teased you along with mention of the overclocking of this card. The stock core
speed is 275 MHz. How does 330 MHz of rock solid stabily sound? 350 MHz was achievable
but there were video glitches and stabilty issues so I scaled it back. Stock memory
speed is 400 MHz which in and of iteself is pretty impressive. How does 460 MHz
of DDR performance hit you? These are some very impressive numbers considering
that it is a budget card - apparently in wolve's clothing.
