First post, by squareguy
- Rank
- Oldbie
I found my new favorite DirectX 7.0 video card while testing my new BX / PIII 850 build.
I tested Serious Sam the First Encounter, Quake 2 and Quake 3 at 1280x1024 high quality settings and the following cards. GeForce2 MX 400 128bit, Geforce4 MX 440 8x 64bit, GeForce FX 5200 64bit, GeForce FX 5200 128bit, Quadro4 700 XGL (Ti 4200), Quadro4 380 XGL (MX 440 8X 128bit) and a Quadro FX 3000 (FX 5900) just to make sure I was CPU bound and I was of course. I also tested a Voodoo3 3500 for comparison and it was easily beaten in all tests of course. The favorite of the bunch? The Quadro4 380 XGL!
Not surprising at all since it is a GeForce4 MX 440 8x 128bit card. I don't have the 128bit version of that card and here is why I like the Quadro4 better. You cannot make a mistake buying one! There isn't a 4x and a 8x version. There isn't a 64mb and a 128mb version. There isn't a 64bit and a 128bit version. There is only the Quadro4 380 XGL with its DirectX 7.0 compatibility, 64MB RAM, 128bit memory bus, 275 core clock, 513 DDR RAM clock and 8.2GB's of memory bandwidth. It will have good build quality also. The only thing I feel that it needs is a cooling fan and that is easy enough to fix. At my low CPU speed it was able to keep up with the Quadro4 700 XGL while drawing about 10-15 Watts less power (eyeballing my power meter).
I compared the same cards in a much faster system and it was only then that the faster cards started really whooping up on the lowly Quadro4 380 XGL. Of course in a faster system you would want something with higher DirectX support.
It was able to push 45 frames-per-second in Serious Sam the First Encounter at 1280x1024, 32bit color, quality settings on the multiplayer map2 demo ( a lot more with faster CPU, about double if I remember correctly). I am impressed. Of course it stomped Quake 2 and 3 into the dirt and gave them no mercy.
So, for my SE440BX-2/PIII 850-MHz build this card rocks!
Gateway 2000 Case and 200-Watt PSU
Intel SE440BX-2 Motherboard
Intel Pentium III 450 CPU
Micron 384MB SDRAM (3x128)
Compaq Voodoo3 3500 TV Graphics Card
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound Card
Western Digital 7200-RPM, 8MB-Cache, 160GB Hard Drive
Windows 98 SE