FIRST LOOK: NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Performance
Date: Sep 22, 2005
Type: Motherboard
Manufacturer: Biostar
Author: Wesley Fink
Page 1 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.

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!





Page 2 Basic Features: Biostar TForce 6100-939

It is worth mentioning that Biostar is shipping TForce 6100 micro ATX boards in both Socket 754 and Socket 939 versions. The Socket 754 version, called the TForce 6100, is the same chipset combination and features 2 DIMM slots. The board that we are testing is the TForce 6100-939, obviously supporting Socket 939, and featuring four DIMMs in dual-channel mode. Older A64's, Revision E, and x2 are all supported on this Socket 939 board.

Biostar TForce 6100-939
CPU Interface	Socket 939 Athlon 64
Chipset	NVIDIA GeForce6100 Northbridge - NVIDIA nForce 4100 Southbridge
Bus Speeds	200 to 300MHz in 1MHz Increments
PCIe Speeds	100 to 125MHz in 1MHz Increments
PCI	Fixed at 33
OnBoard GPU	Auto, Always Enable
Frame Buffer (UMA)	16M, 32M, 64M, 128M, Disabled (64M Default)
Core Voltage	Startup, 0.80V to 1.70V in 0.025V increments
CPU Clock Multiplier	Startup, 4x-25x in 1X increments
HyperTransport Frequency	1000MHz (1GHz) Supports AMD Cool'n'Quiet
HyperTransport Multiplier	Auto, 1X, 2X, 3X, 4X, 5X
DRAM Voltage	2.66V, 2.72V, 2.82V, 2.93V
Memory Slots	Four 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 4GB Total
Expansion Slots	1 PCIe x16 1 PCIe x1 2 PCI Slots
Onboard SATA/RAID	2 SATA II Drives by nForce 410 (RAID 0, 1, JBOD)
Onboard IDE/IDE RAID	Two Standard ATA133/100/66 (4 drives)
Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394	8 USB 2.0 ports supported by nF410 No Firewire (Optional)
Onboard LAN	10/100 Ethernet by Realtek 8201 PNY
Onboard Audio	AC '97 2.3 6-Channel by Realtek ALC655
BIOS	Phoenix Award

Frankly, Biostar even includes an overclock quick guide in the TForce kit - a real surprise for a Micro ATX board with integrated graphics. What's more, the available options in BIOS are a lot more than what many will expect for a Micro ATX/Integrated Graphics board, and even include an Integrated Flashing option so that you don't have to load DOS or Windows to flash the BIOS.

There is even an auto-overclocking option in BIOS, called ONE (Overclocking Navigator Engine) and a CMOS Reloaded feature to allow saving and quick restore of favorite BIOS setups. The only other place that we have seen CMOS reloaded is DFI.

The layout is clean and the TForce 6100 even supports 24-pin power supplies. 20-pin connectors from older power supplies will also work. An even bigger surprise was momentary power and reset switches on the board - and detailed in the manual.





Page 3 Test Setup

Performance Test Configuration
Processor(s):	AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (2.4GHz) Socket 939
RAM:	2 x 512MB OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2
Hard Drive(s):	Seagate 120GB 7200 RPM SATA (8MB Buffer)
Platform and Integrated Video Drivers:	NVIDIA nForce 81.26 ATI 5.9 Catalyst
Video Cards:	NVIDIA 6100 Integrated ATI RS480 Integrated
Operating System(s):	Windows XP Professional SP2 Direct X 9.0c
Motherboards:	BIOSTAR TForce 6100-939 (6100/410) ATI Grouper Reference Board (RS480)

Tests used OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2, which uses Samsung TCCD chips. All memory ran at 2-2-2-10 timing in all benchmarks.

Resolution in all benchmarks is 800x600x32 unless otherwise noted. 3DMark03 and 3Dmark05 default to a standardized 1024x768 resolution. In all games, detail was set to minimum or normal to try to provide frame rates that might be playable at 800x600. Game options were set exactly the same for tests on both the Biostar NVIDIA and ATI platforms.





Page 4 General Performance & 3D Graphics

The NVIDIA 6100 is the little brother of the 6100 family, with the 6150 at the top. Despite that the 6100 wins PCMark2005 and both FutureMark 3D graphics benchmarks. It's reasonable to expect that the 6150 will be even faster. While the NVIDIA lead is not huge in integrated graphics, it is still clear that any of the NVIDIA 6100 family will give you the best overall performance among AMD integrated graphics solutions.

No one would ever try to pretend that 1309 is a great 3DMark03 score or that a 624 3Dmark05 score is great performance. However, the NVIDIA and ATI integrated graphics did finish both benchmarks - something that many value solutions fail to do - and the NVIDIA 6100 was clearly the better performer.





Page 5 Gaming Performance

You expect NVIDIA to lead in Far Cry, and ATI to lead in Half Life 2, mirroring the optimizations for both games. However, the mainstream 6100 is close enough in Half Life 2 to ATI to expect that the 6150 might actually catch or pass the ATI RS480. In every other game, the NVIDIA 6100 is the clear winner, and the 6150 should do even better. NVIDIA has won this round, but we can't help but think what a difference 4 pixel pipelines would have made.





Page 6 Our Take

Our first benchmarking tests indicate that buyers have some reason to be excited about NVIDIA's new 6100 Integrated Graphics chipset family. Despite the fact that serious gamers would find any integrated graphics board far too limiting, the great majority of boards that are used in systems are integrated graphics boards. In our head-to-head competition with the ATI RS480, the current integrated performance king, the bottom-of - the-line 6100 outperformed the ATI in almost every benchmark. That certainly means that the 6150, clocked at 475MHz instead of the 6100's 425, should perform even better.

There are always some exceptions. Not surprisingly, ATI integrated graphics is still best in games optimized for ATI, like Half Life 2. However, the 6100 is close enough to the ATI that the 6150 may even obliterate that advantage. Far Cry, optimized for NVIDIA, performs significantly better on NVIDIA 6100 than ATI RS480. NVIDIA performs best in every other game that we tested, and it was the top performer in both 3D benchmarks and the General Performance PCMark2005.

It should also be pointed out that NVIDIA is just introducing AMD integrated graphics, while ATI has integrated graphics solutions for both AMD and Intel platforms. The great majority of integrated graphics boards are now based on the poorer-performing Intel platform, so that fact alone will keep ATI's market share of integrated graphics high for the time being.

While we are excited about the improved integrated graphics performance within the NVIDIA 6100 family, this is not to say integrated graphics have completely arrived. Who would really want to play Doom 3 at 24FPS at 800x600 - and that's with no eye candy. However, by lowering detail and resolution, you should be able to find a playable 640x480 or 800x600 in most games. However, if you want better detail or higher resolution, you need to use a better video card. There is even good news here as NVIDIA mirrors ATI in now giving the user the option to run integrated graphics and a PCIe video card at the same time.

The Biostar TForce 6100-939 may not use the top-line 6150/430 combo, but it does extremely well with the 6100/410. The overclocking and memory tweaking options were surprisingly good. The Biostar has enough flexibility to satisfy many users, and it even has the voltage adjustment options that seem to be the last thing to appear on value boards. The TForce 6100 was fast, stable, trouble-free in our brief testing, and extremely flexible - particularly for a micro ATX integrated graphics motherboard. This Biostar would make a great foundation for a cheap system with decent performance, though it is missing the desired options that would make it a good multimedia box.

All-in-all, the NVIDIA 6100 is a decent integrated graphics solution and the new performance leader in AMD integrated graphics. It would have been even better if NVIDIA had made it 4 pixel pipelines instead of two, but the performance and options at the higher end does make the NVIDIA first choice among AMD integrated graphics solutions - at least until the next round from ATI.