NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 M64

Overall, it’s clear that the 64-bit memory bus of the TNT2 M64 greatly hinders performance in certain situations, such as higher resolutions and/or color depths. Even on the Celeron 300A, performance drops much more rapidly than a standard TNT2 when switching to 32-bit, especially 800x600 or 1024x768.

The K6-2/450 is not effected nearly as much until you hit 1024x768 because it is more CPU limited. The drop incurred by switching to 32-bit rendering at 800x600 is much more significant with the M64 as well.

As CPU power is increased, the performance difference between the M64 and the TNT2 become much more evident. The M64 hangs tight at 640x480x16, but falls behind quickly at any higher setting. In fact, the frame rate drops up to 30% compared to a similarly clocked standard TNT2 under such conditions.

NVIDIA took their TNT architecture and refined it to create the TNT2. Now they’ve taken the TNT2 and cut some corners – implementing a 64-bit memory bus in the case of the M64 – in order to produce a value solution. As such, we have a fully featured chip with solid drivers in the M64 that can only push the industry forward.

For around a $100, it’s tough to beat an M64 based card. If you don’t care about 32-bit rendering, larger textures sizes, or full AGP texturing support, the Voodoo3 2000 is a better pick as it is generally faster. If you’re system features a more powerful CPU, the M64 will severely hamper your system from attaining its maximum performance.

However, if you do care about those features, and we know many of you do, the M64 is a reasonable choice for a budget gaming rig. But save those pennies for a real TNT2 if you’re a hardcore gamer that lives and dies by framerate.

For a complete budget video card comparison, come back next week – same bat-time, same bat-channel.