NVIDIA's GeForce 6200 & 6600 non-GT: Affordable Gaming
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 11, 2004 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Halo Performance
Although Halo 2 is due out next month on the Xbox, the only Halo action that PC gamers will be getting is from the currently available Halo PC title. It is still pretty fun and well played, thanks to its multi-player modes and thus, we still use it as a benchmark. We ran the built-in timedemo with the - use20 extension to force Pixel Shader 2.0 shaders when possible.The standings are similar in Halo to what we've already seen, with the X700 leader, and the 6200 basically performing as well as the X600 Pro.
We see that at 640x480 and even a little bit at 800x600, there are some elements of CPU limitations, but by the time you're at 1024x768, most of the CPU limitations have faded away. Once again, we see that regardless of resolution; the GeForce 6200 and Radeon X600 Pro perform identically to one another.
Notes from the Lab
Intel Integrated Graphics: We were greeted with another error when attempting to run the Intel benchmarks:
Luckily, Halo let us continue and the card actually worked reasonably well. The image quality was clearly inferior to everything else - especially in texture filtering quality, the amount of shimmering in the game was incredible. But if you ask, "does it work?" and "can I play the game?", then the answer is "Yes." It makes Halo look like a game from 1999, but it works. The reason for the warning is because the integrated graphics has no built-in vertex processing, which Halo requires to be able to run. But with a fast enough CPU, you should be fine, which is what Intel was going for with their integrated graphics architecture to begin with.
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Sunbird - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
bpt8056 - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
Anand, thanks so much for updating us on the PVP feature in the NV40. I think it's high-time somebody held nVidia accountable for a "broken" feature. Do you know if the PVP is working in the PCI-Express version (NV45)? Any information you can get would be great. Thanks Anand!mczak - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
That's an odd conclusion... "In most cases, the GeForce 6200 does significantly outperform the X300 and X600 Pro, its target competitors from ATI."But looking at the results, the X600Pro is _faster_ in 5 of 8 benchmarks (sometimes significantly), 2 are a draw, and only slower in 1 (DoomIII, by a significant margin). Not to disregard DoomIII, but if you base your conclusion entirely on that game alone why do you even bother with the other titles?
I just can't see why that alone justifies "...overall, the 6200 takes the crown".
There are some other odd comments as well, for instance at the Star Wars Battlefront performance: "The X300SE is basically too slow to play this game. There's nothing more to it. The X300 doesn't make it much better either." Compared to the 6200 which gets "An OK performer;..." but is actually (very slightly) slower than the X300?
gordon151 - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
"In most cases, the GeForce 6200 does significantly outperform the X300 and X600 Pro, its target competitors from ATI."Eh, am I missing something or wasnt it the X600 Pro the card that significantly outperformed the 6200 in almost all areas with the exception of Doom3.
dragonic - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
#6 Why would they drop it because the multiplayer framerate is locked? They benchmark using the single player, not the multiplayerDAPUNISHER - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
Thanks Anand! I've been on about the PVP problems with nV40 for months now, and have become increasing fustrated with the lack of information and/or progress by nV. Now that a major site is pursuing this with vigor I can at least take comfort in the knowledge that answers will be forthcoming one way or another!Again, thanks for making this issue a priority and emphatically stating you will get more information for us. It's nV vs Anand so "Rumble young man! Rumble!" :-)
AlphaFox - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
if you ask me, all these low end cards are stupid if you have a PCIe motherboard.. who the heck would get one of these crappy cards if they spent all the money for a brand new PCIe computer??? these cards would be perfect for AGP as they are now going to start to be lower end..ROcHE - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
How would a 9800 Pro do against these card?ViRGE - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
Unless LucasArts changes something Anand, you may want to drop the Battlefront test. With multiplayer, the framerate is locked to the tick rate(usually 20FPS), so its performance is nearly irrelivant.PS #1, he's talking about the full load graph, not the idle graph
teng029 - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
"For example, the GeForce 6600 is supposed to have a street price of $149, but currently, it's selling for closer to $170. So, as the pricing changes, so does our recommendation."i have yet to see the 6600 anywhere. pricewatch only lists two aopen cards (both well over 200.00) it and newegg doesn't carry it. i'm curious as to where he got the 170.00 street price.