Test system specs:
- Intel Pentium III 500Mhz CPU
- MSI 6163Pro Mainboard (Slot-1 / BX)
- 256MB PC100 SDRAM
- LeadTek GeForce SDR
- Absolute Multimedia GeForce DDR
- Absolute Multimedia TNT 2 Ultra (150 / 183)
- Seagate UDMA 33 20Gb Harddrive
- Xitel Storm Platinum 3D PCI Sound Card (Aureal Vortex 2)
- Panasonic 5.2x DVD-ROM
- Win98 / Direct X 7.0a
Test Conditions and Specifications:
All tests were run a total of four times with the results averaged to determine final score. VSync was OFF for all tests except DMZG where VSYNC was Enabled.
3D Mark 2000, from MadOnion.com (formerly FutureMark) is a suite of benchmark tests designed to stress the Direct3D performance of your video accelerator by providing a controlled "real-world" gaming environment. Based on the Max-FX game engine and offering support for most of the features offered by DirectX 7 such as hardware T & L, SSE and 3Dnow! accelerated geometry calculations, Bump-mapping (yes, environmental as well) and more, 3D Mark 2000 has become our benchmark of choice for testing DirectX 7 performance and compliance. Now let's get on with the scores:
As the benchmarks show, the TNT 2 Ultra is no match for its successor the GeForce 256. Yet performance has to be considered acceptable as most of the tests actually run very well, especially the ones where triangle throughput is of lesser importance than fillrate. The TNT 2 Ultra was also able to run the 1600 x 1200 @ 32bit test which for some reason (most likely driver related) the GeForce-based boards would not.