NVIDIA GeForce4 440 Go

Performance - Unreal Performance Test 2002

Unreal Performance Test 2002 (Build 856) 640x480x32 Desktop GeForce4 MX 460 Desktop GeForce4 MX 440 GeForce4 440 Go Max Performance Mobility Radeon 7500 (1.7GHz) GeForce4 440 Go Balanced GeForce4 440 Go Battery Desktop GeForce2 MX 65.2 61.8 58.6 46.7 28.1 19.8 19.2 | 0 | 13 | 26 | 39 | 52 | 65 | 78

Our first glimpse at the performance of the GeForce4 440 Go came with Unreal Performance Test 2002. At 640x480x32 we see that the GeForce4 440 Go in our 1.6GHz test system actually outperformed the Mobility Radeon 7500 in a faster 1.7GHz system; a trend we would see continue throughout the testing process. We also see the GeForce4 440 Go performs only 5.5% slower than the desktop GeForce4 MX 440 on a similarly configured testbed.

Turning PowerMizer on to balanced mode resulted in a performance cutting in half over the maximum performance mode, while the battery mode decreased performance 41.9% compared to the balanced mode. Clearly the penalties involved with changing PowerMizer from its default state are fairly large, but the modes do create more battery run time.

Unreal Performance Test 2002 (Build 856) 800x600x32 Desktop GeForce4 MX 460 Desktop GeForce4 MX 440 GeForce4 440 Go Max Performance Mobility Radeon 7500 (1.7GHz) GeForce4 440 Go Balanced Desktop GeForce2 MX GeForce4 440 Go Battery 55 48.6 46.1 40.5 30.2 17.2 16.2 | 0 | 11 | 22 | 33 | 44 | 55 | 66

At 800x600x32, again the GeForce4 440 Go in its maximum performance state outperforms the Mobility Radeon 7500 in a faster system. This time, the GeForce4 440 Go beat the Mobility Radeon 7500 by 13.8%. Like before, performance of the GeForce4 440 Go did drop with PowerMizer enabled but that is the price one has to pay. Keep in mind that in the balanced mode, the GeForce4 440 Go still readily outperforms a desktop GeForce2 MX by 75.6%.

Unreal Performance Test 2002 (Build 856) 1024x768x32 Desktop GeForce4 MX 460 Desktop GeForce4 MX 440 GeForce4 440 Go Max Performance Mobility Radeon 7500 (1.7GHz) GeForce4 440 Go Balanced Desktop GeForce2 MX GeForce4 440 Go Battery 39 33.5 32.1 29.4 22.7 14.4 12.6 | 0 | 8 | 16 | 23 | 31 | 39 | 47

At 1024x768x32, the GeForce4 440 Go outperforms the Radeon Mobility 7500 by 9.2%.

Unreal Performance Test 2002 (Build 856) 1280x1024x32 Desktop GeForce4 MX 460 Desktop GeForce4 MX 440 Mobility Radeon 7500 (1.7GHz) GeForce4 440 Go Max Performance GeForce4 440 Go Balanced Desktop GeForce2 MX GeForce4 440 Go Battery 25.3 21.5 21.2 20.8 15.9 10.2 8.7 | 0 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 | 30

Bumping the resolution up to 1280x1024x32 changes things up slightly. First off, the gap between the desktop GeForce4 MX 440 and the GeForce4 440 Go shrinks to only 3.4%. Next we see that the Mobility Radeon 7500 is finally able to slightly outperform the GeForce4 440 Go. The difference between the two graphics chips is not noticeable, but keep in mind that the Radeon system was running on a 100MHz faster CPU. It is likely that performance of the Mobility Radeon 7500 would once again fall below the GeForce4 440 Go if both were in the same system.

Performance of the GeForce4 440 Go does drop off when PowerMizer is enabled. In the balanced setting the chip runs 30.8% slower than the chip in maximum performance mode and 82.8% slower in maximum battery mode compared to the balanced mode.

Unreal Performance Test 2002 (Build 856) 1600x1200x32 Desktop GeForce4 MX 460 Desktop GeForce4 MX 440 GeForce4 440 Go Max Performance GeForce4 440 Go Balanced GeForce4 440 Go Battery Desktop GeForce2 MX 17.5 14.8 14.5 11.8 6.4 3.8 | 0 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 18 | 21

This marks the first time that we have been able to test a mobile graphics solution at the high resolution of 1600x1200x32. Previously we were limited by the unit's LCD display, but the Dell unit we received featured a UXGA screen that ran at 1600x1200x32. Since we were not able to run the Mobility Radeon 7500 at 1600x1200x32 on the built in panel, the chip is not on the performance graphs at this resolution.

As you can see, the GeForce4 440 Go performs almost identically to the desktop GeForce4 MX 440 when in Unreal Performance Test 2002 at 1600x1200x32. The two are seemingly identical at this resolution. The chip in both the balanced mode and the battery mode still outperformed the desktop GeForce2 MX, meaning that it was still faster than the GeForce2 Go solutions out there.