FIRST LOOK: NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Performance
by Wesley Fink on September 22, 2005 1:29 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Just two days ago, NVIDIA launched the GeForce 6100 Family of Integrated Graphics solutions with the promise that shipping boards would be available in early October. We can now say that early October is a very reasonable estimate, since we just received the Biostar TForce 6100-939, based on the 6100 chipset.
We've been burning the midnight oil to bring you a First Look at the real performance of the new NVIDIA integrated chipset, as we do a head-to-head comparison with the best integrated graphics solution on the current market - the ATI RS480.
There are several combinations of 6100 North bridges with nForce South bridges. The retail Tforce 6100-939 is the GeForce 6100/nForce 410.
This Biostar TForce 6100 combination is one of the more mainstream solutions, and it does not feature the High-Definition Azalia audio. In the graphics arena, the difference between the top 6150 and the 6100 appears to be just clock speed and features. The 6150 is clocked at 475MHZ, while the 6100 is clocked at 425MHz. This means that the 6100 will perform a bit slower than the 6150, with the performance difference being solely the difference in the 425 to 475 clock speed. The 6150 also uniquely features WMV9 High Definition playback with the TV encoder, but this will not affect graphics performance benchmarking.
While it would have been even nicer to be testing the top-of-the-line 6150/430, we should be able to glean some very nice comparisons to the ATI RS480 chipset. Our sincere thanks to Biostar for getting a 6100 board in our hands so quickly!
We've been burning the midnight oil to bring you a First Look at the real performance of the new NVIDIA integrated chipset, as we do a head-to-head comparison with the best integrated graphics solution on the current market - the ATI RS480.
There are several combinations of 6100 North bridges with nForce South bridges. The retail Tforce 6100-939 is the GeForce 6100/nForce 410.
| Specifications: | NVIDIA GeForce 6150 NVIDIA nForce 430 |
NVIDIA GeForce 6100 NVIDIA nForce 430 |
NVIDIA GeForce 6100 NVIDIA nForce 410 |
| CPU | Athlon 64 or Sempron | Athlon 64 or Sempron | Athlon 64 or Sempron |
| PureVideo (High Definition) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| DirectX® 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 Support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| TV Encoder | Yes | No | No |
| TMDS/DVI | Yes | No | No |
| Graphics Clock | 475 MHz | 425 MHz | 425 MHz |
| PCI-Express | 1x16 2x1 |
1x16 1x1 |
1x16 1x1 |
| MPEG-2/WMV9 Playback | HD(1080p/1080i) | SD | SD |
| Video Scaling | High Quality(5x4) | Basic (2x2) | Basic (2x2) |
| SATA/PATA drives | 4/4 | 4/4 | 2/4 |
| SATA speed | 3Gb/s | 3Gb/s | 3Gb/s |
| RAID | 0,1,0+1,5 | 0,1,0+1,5 | 0,1 |
| NVIDIA MediaShield | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| NVIDIA ActiveArmorTM Firewall | Yes | Yes | - |
| Ethernet | 10/100/1000 | 10/100/1000 | 10/100 |
| USB ports | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| NVIDIA nTuneTM Utility | Yes | Yes | Yes |
This Biostar TForce 6100 combination is one of the more mainstream solutions, and it does not feature the High-Definition Azalia audio. In the graphics arena, the difference between the top 6150 and the 6100 appears to be just clock speed and features. The 6150 is clocked at 475MHZ, while the 6100 is clocked at 425MHz. This means that the 6100 will perform a bit slower than the 6150, with the performance difference being solely the difference in the 425 to 475 clock speed. The 6150 also uniquely features WMV9 High Definition playback with the TV encoder, but this will not affect graphics performance benchmarking.
While it would have been even nicer to be testing the top-of-the-line 6150/430, we should be able to glean some very nice comparisons to the ATI RS480 chipset. Our sincere thanks to Biostar for getting a 6100 board in our hands so quickly!
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wharris1 - Friday, September 23, 2005 - link
Great article for a chipset with a lot of potential. I was wondering if we'd get southbridge (410/430) performance testing that's been found on most recent motherboard reviews (USB, SATA, audio, etc).blinky2004 - Friday, September 23, 2005 - link
Bright yellow slots and retention brackets and CMOS Reloaded hmmm.... Just like the DFI's...I wonder if DFI lent a hand on the design.
xsilver - Thursday, September 22, 2005 - link
quote: "The only other place that we have seen CMOS reloaded is DFI."abit also has a "reloaded" cmos feature
but then again -- AT is pro dfi right ;)
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 22, 2005 - link
Sure, we're "pro DFI" - because DFI is making some very impressive boards. We're basically pro-enthusiast. :pI'm a little curious about the "CMOS Reloaded", though, as I would have that the name was trademarked.
xsilver - Thursday, September 22, 2005 - link
abit dont call it cmos reloaded probably because it is trademarkedthey call it uguru -- but it performs pretty much the same i think
eg. profiles in bios -- even if you reset the bios, you can load from a number of profiles that have been saved
abit also has the guru software which can load a different set of profiles (on the fly overclocking) while in windows --- not sure if dfi /others have that
MattH - Thursday, September 22, 2005 - link
The big question for me is whether the 6100/6150 will run Aero Glass.Hopefully there will be some boards out there with the full range of I/O options, including DVI, SPDIF, and 1394a. Put good overclocking options on one of those puppies, keep the price under $90, and it would be a killer board for anyone other than the SLI nuts.
Rza79 - Thursday, September 22, 2005 - link
On which frequency is the RS480 GPU running?Because on the MSI RS480 board you can set the mhz from 200Mhz up to 350Mhz.
On the MSI it is set to 200Mhz by default. So this is an important factor.
Also, it would be nice to see how the Geforce 6100 stacks up against a full fledged RS480 board like the Gigabyte K8A480M-9 with on board 32MB framebuffer.
The Gigabyte K8S760M also has on board framebuffer.
eRacer - Sunday, September 25, 2005 - link
Looks like http://www.hkepc.com/hwdb/c51-firstlook-test.htm">this HKEPC review uses an ATI chipset with the 32MB dedicated graphics memory. The ATI board (presumably with 32MB memory) is quite a bit faster than the 6100 chipset in the 3D benchmarks tested.Vol2005 - Monday, September 26, 2005 - link
it was a R482 based moboWesley Fink - Thursday, September 22, 2005 - link
The ATI RS480 GPU clock is 300MHz.