The Ultimate GPU Benchmark (2001 - 2005)

Published: 15th August 2024 (last update 16th August 2024 )

Follow-up on the previous part - this time with DX8 and DX9 hardware. If you are instered in this era of GPUs, you are in the right place. Radeon 9700 Pro, GeForce FX 5800 Ultra and many others, everything thoroughly tested.

Introduction

Let's make this short :) This is part 2 of the huge benchmark project that started in 2012. More details about history of the project can be found in the previous article.

So here we are - part 2. This time we start with DX8 hardware - GeForce3 and Radeon 8500 are the oldest ones (and unfortunately for them also tle worst performing). Then we get to GeForce4 Ti and of course the famour Radeon 9000 family, including the Radeon 9700 Pro and 9800 XT. GeForce FX must be present here as well. Many years ago, I was lucky to get the original leaf blower, errr... I mean GeForce FX 5800 Ultra. :) Fortunately it is still in working order and completed the benchmark suite without issues.

Radeon X800 cards were popular back in the day. GeForce 6 series were also very good, so most of them are present in this test. Originally, this article was supposed to end with Radeon X800 XT PE and GeForce 6800 Utra. Later I decided to extend it slightly and add a few selected GPUs of the next generation and see how they compare to older flagships. Among the added cards are Radeon X1300, X1600 X1800 and from the green camp GeForce 7300 and 7800 series.

There are also a few special pieces here. Matrox Parhelia was supposed to compete with GeForce4 Ti series or even later Radeon 9500/9700. Unfortunately because of several reasons it failed and Matrox stopped further development of gaming hardware.

S3 wasn't very active after the Savage 2000 debacle. But eventually they managed to get back to the GPUs market and come up with some interesting videocards. They are unfortunately quite rare and hard to get. Still, a working Chrome S25 ended up in my hands - and it present in this test. :)

As the last addition, there are couple of lowend cards several generations younger. They are cut-down enough not to cause power creep, but still interesting to see how they perform. The most notable one is probably GeForce GT 610 PCI. This is the very last card made for the original PCI bus (non-express). This card is very picky about motherboard and chipset it runs on. Unfortunately VIA PT880 Ultra is not on the compatible list. Therefore I used older SiS 651 board with Pentium 4 processor to benchmark it. There might be some CPU bottlenecks, but I suspect most of the time PCI bus limits the card and using better platform wouldn't do much good in this case.

Test System - Hardware

The test system was chosen to provide the best possible performance for AGP cards. ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 with overclocked Pentium E5700 should be more than enough. As a side effect, PCI-E cards can be tested on this system as well, albeit with slightly reduced performance (only 4 PCI-E lanes and slightly slower CPU). The CPU has BSEL mod applied to report FSB 266 (1066) as default. This allows memory divider 1:1 to be used and increases memory performance greatly.

Apparently, the PT880 Ultra chipset is unstable at FSB > 266 MHz if PCI-E GPU is used. Also this board for some reason doesn't allow "half" multipliers. Therefore For PCI-E, 14×266 was used as a closest possible frequency. I had no idea about this before I already had most AGP cards finished and I really didn't feel like rebenching them.

For AGP 4×/8× cards

Pentium E5700 @ 3.9 GHz (2C/2T, fixed clock)
ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2
VIA PT880 Ultra Chipset (AGP 4×/8×)
2 × 1 GB DDR2 600 CL4-4-4-12-1T
SCSI 80 GB / 10000 rpm HDD
FSP 350W
Acer AL2021 (1600×1200)

For PCI-E cards

Pentium E5700 @ 3.73 GHz (2C/2T, fixed clock)
ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2
VIA PT880 Ultra Chipset (PCI-E 1.0 ×4)
2 × 1 GB DDR2 533 CL4-4-4-12-1T
SCSI 80 GB / 10000 rpm HDD
FSP 350W
Acer AL2021 (1600×1200)

For GeForce GT610 PCI

Pentium 4 2.8 Northwood @ 3.2 GHz (1C/1T, fixed clock)
Gigabyte GA-8SIMLH-P
SiS 651 Chipset (AGP 2×/4×)
2 × 512 MB DDR 400 CL2.5-3-3-6
Crucial BX500 120 GB
FSP 400W
Acer AL2021 (1600×1200)

Test System - OS and Drivers

Windows XP SP3
ForceWare 71.89 (for GeForce3, 4, FX)
ForceWare 93.71 (for GeForce6, 7 Series)
ForceWare 275.33 (for GeForce 9300GE)
ForceWare 320.49 (for GeForce GT 610)
Catalyst 6.11 (for Radeon 8000, 9000-9200 Series)
Catalyst 10.2 (for Radeon 9500-9800 Series, X Series)
Catalyst 12.1 (for Radeon HD 2400)
...
For all GPUs high quality filtering (if possible), vsync off

Test System - Games

Call of Duty [2003, OGL]
Doom 3 [2004, OGL]
Far Cry [2004, DX7/8/9]
FlatOut 2 [2006, DX7/8/9]
GTA 3 [2001, DX7/8]
GTA San Andreas [2005, DX8]
GTA Vice City [2002, DX7/8]
Half Life 2 [2004, DX7/8/9]
Need for Speed: Most Wanted [2005, DX8/9]
Serious Sam: SE [2002, OGL]
Unreal Tournament 2004 [2004, DX8.1]

Tested Video Cards

	P650	Parhelia AGP 8×	Radeon 8500	Radeon 9000	Radeon 9000 Pro	Radeon 9100	Radeon 9200 SE	Radeon 9500
GPU	Parhelia-LX	Parhelia-512	R200	RV250	RV250	R200	RV250	R300
Architecture	MGA	MGA	R2xx	R2xx	R2xx	R2xx	R2xx	R3xx / 4xx
Technology	150 nm	150 nm	150 nm	150 nm	150 nm	150 nm	150 nm	150 nm
Die Size	-	174 mm²	140 mm²	81 mm²	81 mm²	140 mm²	81 mm²	218 mm²
Transistor Count	80 mil.	80 mil.	60 mil.	36 mil.	36 mil.	60 mil.	36 mil.	107 mil.
Transistor Density	-	0.46 mil. / mm²	0.43 mil. / mm²	0.44 mil. / mm²	0.44 mil. / mm²	0.43 mil. / mm²	0.44 mil. / mm²	0.49 mil. / mm²
GPU Clock	230 MHz	250 MHz	275 MHz	250 MHz	275 MHz	250 MHz	200 MHz	275 MHz
ROPs	2	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
TMUs	8	16	8	4	4	8	4	4
Shaders	2 PS + 2 VS	4 PS + 4 VS	4 PS + 2 VS	4 PS + 1 VS	4 PS + 1 VS	4 PS + 2 VS	4 PS + 1 VS	4 PS + 4 VS
Memory	64 MB DDR	128 MB DDR	64 MB DDR	64 MB DDR	64 MB DDR	128 MB DDR	128 MB DDR	64 MB DDR
Memory Clock	460 MHz	600 MHz	550 MHz	400 MHz	550 MHz	500 MHz	333 MHz	540 MHz
Bus Width	128 bit	256 bit	128 bit	128 bit	128 bit	128 bit	64 bit	128 bit
Memory Bandwidth	7.4 GB/s	19.2 GB/s	8.8 GB/s	6.4 GB/s	8.8 GB/s	8 GB/s	2.7 GB/s	8.6 GB/s
Fillrate (Pixel)	460 MP/s	1000 MP/s	1100 MP/s	1000 MP/s	1100 MP/s	1000 MP/s	800 MP/s	1100 MP/s
Fillrate (Texel)	1840 MT/s	4000 MT/s	2200 MT/s	1000 MT/s	1100 MT/s	2000 MT/s	800 MT/s	1100 MT/s
Bus Type	AGP 8×	AGP 8×	AGP 4×	AGP 4×	AGP 4×	AGP 4×	AGP 8×	AGP 8×
TDP	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
DirectX	8.1	8.1	8.1	8.1	8.1	8.1	8.1	9.0
OpenGL	1.3	1.3	1.4	1.4	1.4	1.4	1.4	2.0
Launch Year	2003	2002	2001	2002	2002	2003	??	2002

	Radeon 9600 TX	Radeon 9600 XT	Radeon 9700 Pro	Radeon 9800 XT	Radeon X700 Pro	Radeon X800 GT	Radeon X800 XT PE	Radeon X850 Pro
GPU	R300	RV360	R300	R360	RV410	R423	R420	R481
Architecture	R3xx / 4xx	R3xx / 4xx	R3xx / 4xx	R3xx / 4xx	R3xx / 4xx	R3xx / 4xx	R3xx / 4xx	R3xx / 4xx
Technology	150 nm	130 nm	150 nm	150 nm	110 nm	130 nm	130 nm	130 nm
Die Size	218 mm²	92 mm²	218 mm²	218 mm²	156 mm²	289 mm²	281 mm²	297 mm²
Transistor Count	107 mil.	76 mil.	107 mil.	117 mil.	120 mil.	160 mil.	160 mil.	160 mil.
Transistor Density	0.49 mil. / mm²	0.83 mil. / mm²	0.49 mil. / mm²	0.54 mil. / mm²	0.77 mil. / mm²	0.55 mil. / mm²	0.57 mil. / mm²	0.54 mil. / mm²
GPU Clock	300 MHz	500 MHz	325 MHz	412 MHz	425 MHz	475 MHz	520 MHz	500 MHz
ROPs	8	4	8	8	8	8	16	12
TMUs	8	4	8	8	8	8	16	12
Shaders	8 PS + 4 VS	4 PS + 2 VS	8 PS + 4 VS	8 PS + 4 VS	8 PS + 6 VS	8 PS + 6 VS	16 PS + 6 VS	12 PS + 6 VS
Memory	128 MB DDR	256 MB DDR	128 MB DDR	256 MB DDR	256 MB GDDR3	256 MB GDDR3	256 MB GDDR3	256 MB GDDR3
Memory Clock	540 MHz	600 MHz	620 MHz	730 MHz	860 MHz	980 MHz	1120 MHz	1000 MHz
Bus Width	128 bit	128 bit	256 bit	256 bit	128 bit	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit
Memory Bandwidth	8.6 GB/s	9.6 GB/s	19.8 GB/s	23.4 GB/s	13.8 GB/s	31.4 GB/s	35.8 GB/s	32 GB/s
Fillrate (Pixel)	2400 MP/s	2000 MP/s	2600 MP/s	3300 MP/s	3400 MP/s	3800 MP/s	8320 MP/s	6000 MP/s
Fillrate (Texel)	2400 MT/s	2000 MT/s	2600 MT/s	3300 MT/s	3400 MT/s	3800 MT/s	8320 MT/s	6000 MT/s
Bus Type	AGP 8×	AGP 8×	AGP 8×	AGP 8×	PCI-E x16 (@ x4)	PCI-E x16 (@ x4)	AGP 8×	AGP 8×
TDP	-	22 W	-	60 W	50 W	40 W	63 W	50 W
DirectX	9.0	9.0	9.0	9.0	9.0	9.0	9.0	9.0
OpenGL	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0
Launch Year	2002	2003	2002	2003	2004	2005	2004	2005

	Radeon X1300 Pro	Radeon X1600 XT	Radeon X1800 XL	Radeon HD 2400 Pro	GeForce3 Ti200	GeForce3 Ti200	GeForce4 Ti4200	GeForce4 Ti4600
GPU	RV515	RV530	R520	RV610	NV20	NV20	NV25	NV25
Architecture	R5xx	R5xx	R5xx	R6xx	NV2x	NV2x	NV2x	NV2x
Technology	90 nm	90 nm	90 nm	65 nm	150 nm	150 nm	150 nm	150 nm
Die Size	100 mm²	150 mm²	288 mm²	85 mm²	145 mm²	145 mm²	150 mm²	150 mm²
Transistor Count	105 mil.	157 mil.	321 mil.	180 mil.	57 mil.	57 mil.	63 mil.	63 mil.
Transistor Density	1.05 mil. / mm²	1.05 mil. / mm²	1.11 mil. / mm²	2.12 mil. / mm²	0.39 mil. / mm²	0.39 mil. / mm²	0.42 mil. / mm²	0.42 mil. / mm²
GPU Clock	600 MHz	590 MHz	500 MHz	525 MHz	175 MHz	175 MHz	250 MHz	300 MHz
ROPs	4	4	16	4	4	4	4	4
TMUs	4	4	16	4	8	8	8	8
Shaders	4 PS + 3 VS	12 PS + 5 VS	16 PS + 8 VS	40 Unified	4 PS + 1 VS	4 PS + 1 VS	4 PS + 2 VS	4 PS + 2 VS
Memory	256 MB DDR2	256 MB GDDR3	256 MB GDDR3	256 MB DDR2	64 MB DDR	64 MB DDR	64 MB DDR	128 MB DDR
Memory Clock	800 MHz	1400 MHz	1000 MHz	800 MHz	400 MHz	400 MHz	512 MHz	650 MHz
Bus Width	128 bit	128 bit	256 bit	64 bit	128 bit	128 bit	128 bit	128 bit
Memory Bandwidth	12.8 GB/s	22.4 GB/s	32 GB/s	6.4 GB/s	6.4 GB/s	6.4 GB/s	8.2 GB/s	10.4 GB/s
Fillrate (Pixel)	2400 MP/s	2360 MP/s	8000 MP/s	2100 MP/s	700 MP/s	700 MP/s	1000 MP/s	1200 MP/s
Fillrate (Texel)	2400 MT/s	2360 MT/s	8000 MT/s	2100 MT/s	1400 MT/s	1400 MT/s	2000 MT/s	2400 MT/s
Bus Type	PCI-E x16 (@ x4)	PCI-E x16 (@ x4)	PCI-E x16 (@ x4)	PCI-E x16 (@ x4)	AGP 4×	AGP 4×	AGP 4×	AGP 4×
TDP	31 W	42 W	70 W	-	35 W	35 W	33 W	45 W
DirectX	9c	9c	9c	10	8	8	8.1	8.1
OpenGL	2.0	2.0	2.0	3.3	1.3	1.3	1.3	1.3
Launch Year	2005	2005	2005	2007	2001	2001	2002	2002

	GeForce FX 5200 64-bit	GeForce FX 5200	GeForce FX 5600	Quadro FX 1100	GeForce FX 5800 Ultra	GeForce FX 5900 XT	GeForce FX 5950 Ultra	GeForce 6200 (NV43)
GPU	NV34	NV34	NV31	NV36	NV30	NV35	NV38	NV43
Architecture	NV3x	NV3x	NV3x	NV3x	NV3x	NV3x	NV3x	NV4x / G7x
Technology	150 nm	150 nm	150 nm	130 nm	130 nm	130 nm	130 nm	110 nm
Die Size	91 mm²	91 mm²	135 mm²	138 mm²	200 mm²	207 mm²	207 mm²	150 mm²
Transistor Count	47 mil.	47 mil.	80 mil.	82 mil.	125 mil.	135 mil.	135 mil.	143 mil.
Transistor Density	0.52 mil. / mm²	0.52 mil. / mm²	0.59 mil. / mm²	0.59 mil. / mm²	0.62 mil. / mm²	0.65 mil. / mm²	0.65 mil. / mm²	0.95 mil. / mm²
GPU Clock	250 MHz	250 MHz	325 MHz	425 MHz	500 MHz	390 MHz	475 MHz	300 MHz
ROPs	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
TMUs	4	4	4	4	8	8	8	4
Shaders	4 PS + 2 VS	4 PS + 2 VS	4 PS + 2 VS	4 PS + 3 VS	4 PS + 2 VS	4 PS + 3 VS	4 PS + 3 VS	4 PS + 3 VS
Memory	128 MB DDR	128 MB DDR	128 MB DDR	128 MB DDR	128 MB GDDR2	128 MB DDR	256 MB DDR	128 MB DDR
Memory Clock	333 MHz	400 MHz	550 MHz	650 MHz	1000 MHz	700 MHz	950 MHz	550 MHz
Bus Width	64 bit	128 bit	128 bit	128 bit	128 bit	256 bit	256 bit	128 bit
Memory Bandwidth	2.7 GB/s	6.4 GB/s	8.8 GB/s	10.4 GB/s	16 GB/s	22.4 GB/s	30.4 GB/s	8.8 GB/s
Fillrate (Pixel)	1000 MP/s	1000 MP/s	1300 MP/s	1700 MP/s	2000 MP/s	1560 MP/s	1900 MP/s	1200 MP/s
Fillrate (Texel)	1000 MT/s	1000 MT/s	1300 MT/s	1700 MT/s	4000 MT/s	3120 MT/s	3800 MT/s	1200 MT/s
Bus Type	AGP 8×	AGP 8×	AGP 8×	AGP 8×	AGP 8×	AGP 8×	AGP 8×	AGP 8×
TDP	25 W	25 W	37 W	-	75 W	-	-	35 W
DirectX	9.0	9.0	9.0	9.0	9.0	9.0	9.0	9c
OpenGL	1.5	1.5	1.5	1.5	1.5	1.5	1.5	2.1
Launch Year	2003	2003	2003	2004	2003	2003	2003	2005

	GeForce 6200 (NV43. unlock)	GeForce 6600	GeForce 6700 XL	GeForce 6800 LE	GeForce 6800	GeForce 6800 GS	GeForce 6800 Ultra	GeForce 7300 GS
GPU	NV43	NV43	NV43	NV40	NV40	NV41	NV40	G72
Architecture	NV4x / G7x	NV4x / G7x	NV4x / G7x	NV4x / G7x	NV4x / G7x	NV4x / G7x	NV4x / G7x	NV4x / G7x
Technology	110 nm	110 nm	110 nm	130 nm	130 nm	130 nm	130 nm	90 nm
Die Size	150 mm²	150 mm²	150 mm²	287 mm²	287 mm²	225 mm²	287 mm²	77 mm²
Transistor Count	143 mil.	143 mil.	143 mil.	222 mil.	222 mil.	190 mil.	222 mil.	112 mil.
Transistor Density	0.95 mil. / mm²	0.95 mil. / mm²	0.95 mil. / mm²	0.77 mil. / mm²	0.77 mil. / mm²	0.84 mil. / mm²	0.77 mil. / mm²	1.45 mil. / mm²
GPU Clock	300 MHz	300 MHz	525 MHz	325 MHz	325 MHz	450 MHz	400 MHz	550 MHz
ROPs	4	4	4	8	12	12	16	2
TMUs	8	8	8	8	12	12	16	4
Shaders	8 PS + 3 VS	8 PS + 3 VS	8 PS + 3 VS	8 PS + 4 VS	12 PS + 5 VS	12 PS + 5 VS	16 PS + 6 VS	4 PS + 3 VS
Memory	128 MB DDR	128 MB DDR	128 MB GDDR3	128 MB DDR	128 MB DDR	256 MB GDDR3	256 MB GDDR3	128 MB DDR2
Memory Clock	550 MHz	550 MHz	1100 MHz	700 MHz	700 MHz	1200 MHz	1100 MHz	810 MHz
Bus Width	128 bit	128 bit	128 bit	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit	64 bit
Memory Bandwidth	8.8 GB/s	8.8 GB/s	17.6 GB/s	22.4 GB/s	22.4 GB/s	38.4 GB/s	35.2 GB/s	6.5 GB/s
Fillrate (Pixel)	1200 MP/s	1200 MP/s	2100 MP/s	2600 MP/s	3900 MP/s	5400 MP/s	6400 MP/s	1100 MP/s
Fillrate (Texel)	2400 MT/s	2400 MT/s	4200 MT/s	2600 MT/s	3900 MT/s	5400 MT/s	6400 MT/s	2200 MT/s
Bus Type	AGP 8×	AGP 8×	PCI-E x16 (@ x4)	AGP 8×	AGP 8×	AGP 8×	AGP 8×	PCI-E x16 (@ x4)
TDP	~40 W	40 W	50 W	~45 W	50 W	60 W	~70 W	16 W
DirectX	9c	9c	9c	9c	9c	9c	9c	9c
OpenGL	2.1	2.1	2.1	2.1	2.1	2.1	2.1	2.1
Launch Year	2005	2004	2004	2004	2004	2005	2004	2006

	GeForce 7800 GS	GeForce 7800 GT	GeForce 9300 GE	GeForce GT 610 PCI	Chrome S25
GPU	G71	G70	G98	GF119	Matrix
Architecture	NV4x / G7x	NV4x / G7x	Tesla	Fermi	-
Technology	90 nm	110 nm	65 nm	40 nm	90 nm
Die Size	196 mm²	333 mm²	86 mm²	79 mm²	92 mm²
Transistor Count	278 mil.	302 mil.	210 mil.	292 mil.	-
Transistor Density	1.42 mil. / mm²	0.91 mil. / mm²	2.44 mil. / mm²	3.7 mil. / mm²	-
GPU Clock	375 MHz	400 MHz	540 MHz	810 MHz	500 MHz
ROPs	16	16	4	4	4
TMUs	16	20	8	8	8
Shaders	16 PS + 6 VS	20 PS + 7 VS	8 unified	48 unified	4 PS + 4 VS
Memory	256 MB GDDR3	256 MB GDDR3	256 MB DDR2	1024 MB DDR3	512 MB DDR2
Memory Clock	1200 MHz	1000 MHz	1000 MHz	1333 MHz	800 MHz
Bus Width	256 bit	256 bit	64 bit	64 bit	128 bit
Memory Bandwidth	38.4 GB/s	32 GB/s	8 GB/s	10.6 GB/s	12.8 GB/s
Fillrate (Pixel)	6000 MP/s	6400 MP/s	2160 MP/s	3240 MP/s	2000 MP/s
Fillrate (Texel)	6000 MT/s	8000 MT/s	4320 MT/s	6480 MT/s	4000 MT/s
Bus Type	AGP 8×	PCI-E x16 (@ x4)	PCI-E 2.0 x16 (@ x4 1.1)	PCI	PCI-E x16 (@ x4)
TDP	45 W	65 W	-	29 W	-
DirectX	9c	9c	10	12	9
OpenGL	2.1	2.1	3.3	4.6
Launch Year	2006	2005	2008	2012	2005