NVIDIA GeForce 2 GTS 64MB

Athlon 750 - Quake III Arena demo001.dm3

For a higher end benchmarking system, we chose the Athlon 750. Using Quake III Arena's built in demo001, we were able to simulate performance in a real world situation. The demo001 benchmark is not known for its complex textures or scene quality and is generally thought to be an accurate representation of the majority of Quake III Arena levels.

In 16-bit color mode, we find that the GeForce 2 GTS 64 MB stays about neck and neck with the lower costing 32 MB configuration. In fact, the 64MB GeForce 2 GTS actually takes a back seat to the 32 MB GeForce 2 GTS when at 1280x1024x16. The extra speed gained by the 32 MB GeForce 2 GTS is most likely a result of the faster SGRAM chips being used on this card compared to the slower SDRAM chips on the 64 MB version. The one place in 16-bit color mode where the extra 32 MB of memory proves to be an advantage is at 1600x1200x16. It seems that the extra memory finally begins to help at this high resolution, as the extra RAM most likely prevents a very mild form of AGP texturing. At this resolution, we find that the 64 MB GeForce 2 GTS performs 8.4% faster than the 32 MB GeForce 2 GTS.

In 32-bit color we finally begin to see the advantage that the extra 32 MB of RAM provides, however the performance gain experienced does not set in until the high resolution of 1280x1024 and above. Below this resolution, the extra RAM goes unused, providing no performance increase. At 1280x1024x32, it seems that Quake III Arena is finally able to take advantage of the extra memory, providing for a 7.8% performance increase. The speed only increases when at 1600x1200x32, with the 64 MB GeForce 2 GTS performing 9% faster than its closest competition: the 32 MB GeForce 2 GTS.