ATI Radeon Xpress 200: Performance, PCI Express & DX9 for Athlon 64
by Wesley Fink on November 8, 2004 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Integrated Graphics Performance Comparison
Doom 3 Performance
The Radeon Xpress 200 does hold an advantage over Intel's GMA 900 in that it actually runs Doom 3, but that's really where the advantages end. The game is not very playable with the integrated graphics core, even at 640 x 480.The lowly Radeon X300 SE is basically twice as fast as the Radeon Xpress 200, which isn't saying much as the X300 SE is basically the minimum level of playability for Doom 3.
We did encounter a strange issue with the Radeon Xpress 200 in our testing, there are significant image quality issues with it under Doom 3. It doesn't make sense since, architecturally, there shouldn't be any difference between it and the X300 SE we compared it to (other than fewer rendering pipelines but that shouldn't cause the issue).
First, here's what Doom 3 should look like as rendered on our test Radeon X300 SE:
But here's what we get with the Radeon Xpress 200:
We have informed ATI of the issue and they are looking into it for us, but as far as we are concerned even with the image quality issues fixed, Doom 3 isn't really the type of game to be playing on integrated graphics, not even with the Radeon Xpress 200.
Half Life 2 Performance (VST)
Using the Source Visual Stress Test we look at a preview of Half Life 2 performance on these integrated graphics solutions.The Radeon Xpress 200 manages to perform reasonably well, definitely not as well as the X300 SE, but nothing that isn't playable. We will have to wait another week to see if it actually means that the integrated graphics will be playable in Half Life 2, but if the VST is any indication things are looking good.
Unreal Tournament 2004 Performance
At 800 x 600 the Radeon Xpress 200 is playable, despite the fact that the X300 SE is 23% faster. Despite the fact that the Radeon Xpress 200 has much more memory bandwidth than the X300 SE thanks to the dual-channel DDR400 interface of the Socket-939 Athlon 64, its performance is significantly impaired by the reduction in rendering pipelines. But with the complexity of implementing fully floating point DX9 compliant rendering pipelines, it's tough to do more than 2 pipes at this stage without increasing cost significantly.
Halo Performance
Also playable, even at 800 x 600 (in actual gameplay), the Radeon Xpress 200 continues to do "ok" in the performance tests. It's better than Intel's GMA 900 in that it is able to offer this level of performance at much better image quality, but the performance isn't anything to get incredibly excited about as the $80 X300 SE wipes the floor with the Radeon Xpress 200. Granted we are comparing $0 to $80, so a performance difference is expected.
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory Performance
Based on the Quake 3 engine, performance here is important because the types of games that will be mostly playable on integrated graphics solutions will be older titles.The Radeon Xpress 200 doesn't disappoint, performing within 10% of the X300 SE.
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Sahrin - Monday, November 8, 2004 - link
I'm really excited to see another performance player in the AMD chipset market. Ironically, despite the fact that Intel is considered to have the best quality chipsets, the AMD segment has the most players and the most options. This chipset looks very good to me, especially as an overclocker, but I'm kind of left hanging in the feature set, which traditionally has been the determinant in the A64 market. Sure, 6 SATA ports is nice...etc. etc. but where's my dual integrated GigE LAN? I will take a long hard look at this chipset if SB450 comes out in time, but I think I will likely be going nForce one more generation.SLIM - Monday, November 8, 2004 - link
#6, of course you use an FX with the best gfx card available, he's trying to highlight small differences between chipsets. If you want P4 vs A64 look at a recent cpu review.However one large set of differences were the specviewperf benches? Huge differences when using ati/ati (some good and some bad) but no comments as to wtf is going on. Are those differences related to DX vs opengl, other driver issues, anybody know??
ipoh - Monday, November 8, 2004 - link
Onboard graphics use to be not good but changed since ATi comes out with RS350...and with this RS480 DX9 VGA will be definitely goodCurrently using my RS350 playing Doom3 and still looks good :)
I will spend my money for more HDD :)
Ivo - Monday, November 8, 2004 - link
With DX9 included, the integrated graphics (IG) of RS480 is good. First of all, with guaranteed future OS compatibility, it's very good for the OEM - for both business machines and home-office PCs. Secondly, as stated it the review, it is good enough for high-end 2D users because of the Surround View option. Third, it is a reasonable option for gamers too, as it could serve in emergency cases, when your high-end overclocked graphic card is tired ;-(The IG could be even more interesting for occasional gamers and even business users if, in a thinkable upcoming chipset, the IG is involved in a SLI scheme with one graphic card. In that case the IG will add it's modest 10% to 20% to the overall gaming performance (small, but from heart). This 10%-20% could be interesting for the real gamers too, if the IG is involved in a triple SLI scheme with two additional graphic cards.
My questions to this great article are:
1. What about the Cool 'N Quiet operation - does it work properly on the reference board with all (DIMM etc.) configurations used?
2. What is ATI suggesting about the SidePort - why it is limited to 32 bit and 16MB only?
byvis - Monday, November 8, 2004 - link
It's very impressive. But I have one minor question about the benchmarking. Why didn't you test Nforce4 + X800XT in Winstone and other benchmarks? I see, that you DID test RX480 + GF6800U and RX480 + X800XT. Maybe the margins are very small, but I'd like to see them, I think other people would like that too.deathwalker - Monday, November 8, 2004 - link
ATI might be right in the thick of it based on performance..however...from a marketing standpoint I think they will have a tough road to plow.bearxor - Monday, November 8, 2004 - link
SoldJalf - Monday, November 8, 2004 - link
Onboard graphics makes perfect sense for non-gamers.If they can cram in something that works for normal desktop use, *and* can claim to support DirectX 9 as well, then it's a pretty good deal. It'll serve your needs under normal use, and it'll at least be able to run games, even if they might get an unplayable framerate.
DrDisconnect - Monday, November 8, 2004 - link
I'm surprised that any of you are wondering why they are producing an integrated graphics versio. Haven't you taken a walk through any of the computer superstores lately? Entry level machines from HP etc. are using integrated graphics to hold prices down yet allow users to beef up their machines when they ahve some coin later on.ranger203 - Monday, November 8, 2004 - link
-1st of all, why does anandtech keep benchmarking AMD FX chips, sure they are the fastest hands down, but none of us are buying they. I.e. they are comparing apples to oranges, (FX vs. P4). They need to bench regular A64s!!!!-2nd, Onboard video still really sucks for gaming, but atleast they are making an effort, they should relize that $30 gaming cards are better quality than their onboard video and stop integrating it into their full size atx boards!!! Unless this was just a "show" board of ati's capability, then i could understand....