GeForce 6200 TurboCache: PCI Express Made Useful
by Derek Wilson on December 15, 2004 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Half-Life 2 Performance
Here is the raw data we collected from our Half-Life 2 performance analysis. The data shows fairly consistent performance across all the levels we test.| Half-Life 2 1024x768 Performance | |||||
| at_canals_08 | at_coast_05 | at_coast_12 | at_prison_05 | at_c17_12 | |
| GeForce 6200 (128-bit) | 43.6 | 65.23 | 50.4 | 41.57 | 45.84 |
| GeForce 6200 (TC-64b) | 38.26 | 61.81 | 48.2 | 38.92 | 42.11 |
| Radeon X300 | 34.3 | 57.54 | 39.14 | 32.62 | 40.69 |
| GeForce 6200 (TC-32b) | 31.66 | 51.09 | 39.72 | 30.69 | 34.1 |
| Radeon X300 SE | 29.59 | 52.42 | 34.91 | 30.55 | 37.01 |
The X300 SE and new 32-bit TurboCache cards are very evenly matched here. The original 6200 leads every time, but the TC versions do hold their own fairly well. The regular X300 isn't quite able to keep up with the 64-bit version of the 6200 TurboCache, especially in particularly GPU limited levels. This comes across in a higher average performance at high resolutions.
Again, Unlike Doom 3, the TurboCache parts are able to keep up with the 128-bit 6200 part fairly well. This has to do with the ammount of memory bandwidth required to process each pixel, and HL2 is more evenly balanced between being GPU dependant and memory bandwidth dependant.
We can see from the resolution scaling chart that in cases other than 1024x764, the competition between the X300 series and the 6200 TurboCache parts is a wash. It is impressive that all these cards run HL2 at very playable framerates in all our tests.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
43 Comments
View All Comments
Cybercat - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
Basically, this is saying that this generation $90 part is no better than last generation $90 part. That's sad. I was hoping the performance leap of this generation would be felt through all segments of the market.mczak - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
#12, IGP would indeed be interesting. In fact, TurboCache seems quite similar to ATI's Hypermemory/Sideport in their IGP.Cygni - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
In other news, Nforce4 (2 months ago) and Xpress 200 (1 month ago) STLL arent on the market. Good lord. Talk about paper launches from ATI and Nvidia...ViRGE - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
Ok, I have to admit I'm a bit confused here. Which cards did you exactly test, the 6200/16MB(32bit) and the 6200/32MB(64bit), or what? And what about the 6200/64MB, will it be a 64bit card, or a whole 128bit card?Cybercat - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
What does 2 ROP stand for? :P *blush*PrinceGaz - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
#15- I've got a Ti4200 but I'd never call it nVidia's best card. It is still the best card you can get in the bargain-bin price-range it is now sold at (other cards at a similar price are the FX5200 and Radeon 9200), though supplies of new Ti4200's are very limited these days.#12- Thanks Derek for answering my question about higher resolutions. As only the front-buffer needs to be in the onboard memory (because it's absolutely critical the memory accessed to send the signal to the display must always be available without any unpredictable delay), that means even the 16MB 6200 can run at any resolution, even 2560x1600 in theory though performance would probably be terrible as everything else would need to be in system memory.
housecat - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
Another Nvidia innovation done right.MAValpha - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
I would expect the 6200 to blow the Ti4200 out of the water, because the FX5700/Ultra is considered comparable to the GF4Ti. By comparison, many places are pitting the 6200 against the higher-end FX5900, and it holds its own.Even with the slower TurboCache, it should still be on par with a 4600, if not a little bit faster. Notice how the more powerful version beats an X300 across the board, a card derived from the 9600 series?
DigitalDivine - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
how about raw perfomance numbers pitting the 6200 with nvidia's best graphics card imo, the ti4200.plk21 - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
I like seing such an inexpensive part playing newer games, but I'd hardly call it real-world to pair a $75 video card with an Athlon64 4000+, which Newegg lists at $719 right now.It'd be interesting to see how these cards fare with a more realistic system for them to be paired with, i.e. a Sempron 2800+