Budget Video Card Comparison - November 2000

Conclusion

With three main value video card choices out there, how can one decide on the perfect card for their needs? By examining the above results, there emerges a clear winner.

3dfx's Voodoo4 4500 can be discounted simply due to its poor performance. Although 3dfx does have some good ideas on their hands, including their T-Buffer effects and the idea of scaling down by using less chips, the fact of the matter is that the Voodoo4 4500 does not possess enough power to be a viable threat. If the card came out when it was supposed to, around 6 months ago or earlier with the launch of the Voodoo5 5500, we may be telling a different story. If the card was launched at this time, the competition would be less fierce and the Voodoo4 4500 could have very well come out on top. The problem is that it did not, and instead it was pushed in a rather crowded arena where NVIDIA and ATI products can walk all over the Voodoo4 4500.

Although the decision to throw out the Voodoo4 4500 from a budget gamer's shopping list may be easy, the choice between the Radeon SDR and the GeForce2 MX may not be as clear cut. It is after testing each card as well as evaluating the features of each card, can we throw out ATI's Radeon SDR as the budget card of choice. This decision comes from a few flaws in the Radeon SDR.

The first, and perhaps most devastating flaw in the Radeon SDR is its poor driver support. As shown in the Windows 2000 driver performance section, ATI gives off the appearance that it couldn't care less about drivers. We know ATI is "working" to alleviate the poor Windows 2000 performance as well as a host of other driver related problems the Radeon series cards have, yet we have yet to see any substantial improvement and therefore can not expect the drivers to get better very fast.

A second problem with the Radeon is its performance. Although the Radeon SDR coupled with HyperZ technology is not only a good idea but the way other manufacturers seem to be going in future products, the fact of the matter is that the technology is not as powerful as it needs to be to compete with the GeForce2 MX. Sure, in higher resolutions of Quake III Arena the Radeon SDR beats out the GeForce2 MX, however it does not do so by much. In addition, the tables turn when looking at the T&L intensive MDK2 demo. No longer can the Radeon SDR keep up to the GeForce2 MX's speed, even at higher resolutions. Finally under Unreal Tournament, the Radeon SDR gains quite a lead over the GeForce2 MX, however it does not make up for the poor MDK2 performance. Since the lackluster performance under MDK2 suggests a sub par T&L engine, we can not be sure how the Radeon SDR will perform in the future as more and more T&L titles come along. Texture intensive, low polygon games similar to Unreal Tournament are quickly fading out, and with the departure of these games also goes much of the attractiveness of the Radeon SDR.

The final straw on the Radeon SDR's back is its price. Selling for around $131 in a white box OEM fashion only, the Radeon SDR runs $30-40 more than many GeForce2 MX based cards.

So, with some consideration, we can pick a GeForce2 MX based card as the budget card of choice. Not only does the card shine in T&L intensive games, but it also has strong performance in all the benchmarks. In addition, many GeForce2 MX cards are currently on the market for around $100 or even a bit less. And for a bit more money you can get an MX based card with both a heatsink and a fan, making overclocking a cinch. Dual VGA TwinView ready GeForce2 MX based cards are still rather hard to find and may end up costing up to $150, but for many users in a business type environment it may be worth it.

It won't be long before the current generation of high performance video processors become the processor of choice for the gamer on a budget. With GeForce2 GTS prices falling nearly daily, it will not be long before the GeForce2 MX based cards are priced even lower. Do not expect, however, for the GeForce2 MX to remain the budget card of choice for too long. With in a few months we should see new product announcements from both NVIDIA as well as ATI. Without question, a modified version of these new processors will soon find their way into new budget video cards, making the cycle start all over once again.