3DMark2001 SE measures video card performance simulating DirectX 8.1 games. It is very effective software for evaluating the performance from previous-generation games, programmed using DirectX 8. In this software we ran two tests, both at 1024x768x32. Since we were evaluating low-end video cards, we decided to not run our tests in higher resolutions, since rarely a user that buys a video card from this level will push resolutions above 1024x768 in 3D games.
We ran this software first without antialiasing and with no frame buffer, and then we put the antialiasing at 4 samples and the frame buffer at triple-buffering. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialiasing. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialiasing to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our benchmark, allowing direct comparison between them. Also, some very low-end video chips (Volari 8300 and Intel i915G) don’t have antialiasing feature, so we were not able to benchmark them using this configuration.
You may be asking yourself why we added an old program in a review of a latest generation video card. To us, it is as important to know the performance of a video card with the latest games as it is to know its performance in an older game. That’s why we kept this software in our methodology.
At the default 3DMark2001 SE configuration, PowerColor Radeon X300 SE HyperMemory 128 MB 64-bit achived similar performance to Radeon X300 128 MB 128-bit (ATI), and it was 4.32% faster than GeForce 6200 TurboCache 16 MB 32-bit (Leadtek), 22.81% faster than i915G (Intel D915GEV) and 32.42% faster than Volari 8300 128 MB (XGI).
PowerColor Radeon X300 SE HyperMemory 128 MB 64-bit was beaten by Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB 128-bit (ATI), which was 108.87% faster, GeForce 6600 128 MB (Albatron), which was 80.57% faster, GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB (NVIDIA), which was 75.33% faster, GeForce 6200 128 MB 128-bit (Leadtek), which was 68.35% faster and GeForce 6200 TurboCache 64 MB 64-bit (XFX), which was 24.33% faster.
Enabling video quality enhancements, PowerColor Radeon X300 SE HyperMemory 128 MB 64-bit achieved similar performace to Radeon X300 128 MB 128-bit (ATI), and it was 55.67% faster than GeForce 6200 TurboCache 64 MB 64-bit (XFX) and 479.04% faster than GeForce 6200 TurboCache 16 MB 32-bit (Leadtek).
PowerColor Radeon X300 SE HyperMemory 128 MB 64-bit was beaten by Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB 128-bit (ATI), which was 191.95% faster, GeForce 6600 128 MB (Albatron), which was 104.35% faster, GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB (NVIDIA), which was 86.79% faster and GeForce 6200 128 MB 128-bit (Leadtek), which was 35.71% faster.
