Test Setup
By
Harald Thon,
published on November 8, 2004
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: geforce, go, 6800, reaches, for, desktop, graphics, performance
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: geforce, go, 6800, reaches, for, desktop, graphics, performance
Contents
- 1. As Time Goes By: GeForce Go Catches Up With The 6800
- 2. Is This NVIDIA's Return?
- 3. NVIDIA Geforce Go 6800 Details
- 4. Powermizer 5.0
- 5. Test Setup
- 6. Is It A Portable PC Or A Notebook?
- 7. Interfaces Everywhere
- 8. Hard Drive RAID And Two Optical Drives
- 9. Hard Drive RAID And Two Optical Drives, Continued
- 10. Benchmarks
- 11. DirectX8:UT 2003
- 12. Open GL: Quake III Team Arena
- 13. DirectX9: Aquamark
- 14. DirectX8: Splinter Cell
- 15. How Do Powermizer Settings Influence Frame Rates?
- 16. How Do Powermizer Settings Influence Battery Life?
- 17. Part II: Geforce Go 6800 And Mobility Radeon 9800 Battle For Desktop Performance
- 18. Doom3
- 19. UT2004
- 20. Farcry, Patch 1.3
- 21. Conclusion: Change Of Leadership, Madness (Likely To) Continue
5. Test Setup
This review will answer two questions. First, will the GeForce Go 6800 be fast enough to match or outperform ATI's Mobility Radeon 9800? And second, how close is its performance level in comparison to today's desktop graphics? To address these two matters, we split the benchmark section into two parts.
The first part of the test compares the GeForce Go 6800 with ATI's Mobility Radeon 9800. We used a Sager N9860H1 with GeForce Go 6800 graphics, and an Inspiron XPS by Dell. In order to include more mobile graphics for comparison, we also added four desktop replacement notebooks to the charts: Dell's Inspiron 8600 using the GeForce FX Go 5650, an Athlon64 Notebook using the Mobility Radeon 9600, and an early sample of Dell's first XPS. For our European readers, we also added the test results of Dell's Inspiron 9100, which also uses the Mobility Radeon 9800.
| Sager N9860H1 | Dell Inspiron XPS | Dell Inspiron 9100 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Max Four-Spindle / Modular | Two-Spindle / Modular | Two-Spindle / Modular |
| Dimensions (WxHxD) | 392mm x 54mm x 293mm / 15.43" x 2.13" x 11.54" | 358mm x 54mm x 272mm / 14.10" x 2.13" x 10.71" | 358mm x 54mm x 272mm / 14.10" x 2.13" x 10.71" |
| Weight of unit | 5500g/12.15lbs | 4260g / 9.37lbs | 4260g / 9.37lbs |
| Weight of charger and cable | 1140g / 2.51lbs | 1140g / 2.51lbs | 1140g / 2.51lbs |
| Battery Weight | 700g / 24.71oz | 700g / 24.71oz | 700g / 24.71oz |
| Pointing Device(s) | Touchpad | Touchpad +Trackstick | Touchpad +Trackstick |
| Display Size | 17" | 15,4" | 15,4" |
| Display Resolution | 1680x1050 | 1920x1200 | 1920x1200 |
| CPU | Pentium4 3.20 GHz HT (Prescott) | Pentium4EE 3.40 GHz HAT (Northwood) | Pentium4 3.20 GHz HT (Prescott) |
| Memory Type | PC4300 DDR2 CL4.0 (apacer, kingmax) | PC3200 DDR CL3.0 (infineon) | PC3200 DDR CL3.0 (infineon) |
| Amount of Memory | 1 GB | 1 GB | 512 MB |
| Chipset Northbridge | i915P | i865P | i865P |
| Chipset Southbridge | Intel ICH5 | Intel ICH5 | Intel ICH5 |
| Graphics Controller | Nvidia Geforce Go6800 256 MB DDR 275MHz/ 300 MHz (core/memory) | ATi MR9800 256 MB DDR 350MHz/ 300 MHz (core/memory) | ATi MR9800 256 MB DDR 350MHz/ 300 MHz (core/memory) |
| Hard drive bay | no bay but 2x 2.5", 9.5 mm height | 2.5", 9.5 mm height | 2.5", 9.5 mm height |
| Ethernet | Realtek RTL8169/8110 10/100/1000 MBit | Broadcom 570x 10/100/1000 MBit | Broadcom 440x 10/100 MBit |
| Bluetooth-Radio | no bay but 2x 2.5", 9.5 mm height | option | Dell Truemobile 1450 (802.11 a/b/g) |
| Modem | Smart Link 56k | BCM V.92 56K Modem | BCM V.92 56K Modem |
| Audio | Realtek HD Audio | Sigma Tel C-Major | Sigma Tel C-Major |
| Battery Capacity | 88Wh | 97Wh | 95Wh |
| DVD-/CD-R/RW-Drive | Toshiba SD-R2512 | CD-R/RW SN-324F | DVD+RW GCA-4040N |
| Harddisc | Fujitsu MHT2080BH SATA-6 80 GB/5400rpm/8 MB | Hitachi Travelstar HTS548060M9AT00 ATA-6 60 GB/5400rpm/8 MB | Hitachi Travelstar HTS726060M9AT00 ATA-6 60 GB/7200rpm/8 MB |
| PC-Card Slot(s) | 1x type II ( L) | 1x type II ( L) | 1x type II ( L) |
| Floppy Drive | No | No | No |
| USB ports | 4x USB 2.0 (L) | 4x USB 2.0 (B) | 4x USB 2.0 (B) |
| 1394 ports | 2x (L) | 1x (L) | 1x (L) |
| IR port | Yes (L) | Yes (F) | Yes (F) |
| Serial Ports | Yes (B) | No | No |
| Parallel Ports | Yes (B) | No | No |
| VGA out | No | Yes (B) | Yes (B) |
| DVI out | Yes (B) | Yes (B) | Yes (B) |
| PS/2-Connector | Yes (B) | No | No |
| Headphone/ Microphone/ Line In Connector | Yes(L)/Yes(L) | Yes(L)/Yes(L) | Yes(L)/Yes(L) |
| Video-In/Out | Yes/Yes (S-Video, Composite) | No/Yes (S-Video) | No/Yes (S-Video) |
| Addons | integrated Webcam, 6-in-1 Cardreader, 4 loudspeaker plus integrated Subwoofer | ||
| B=Back side, F=Front, L=Left side, R=Right Side | |||
| Dell Inspiron 8600 | Blackbox-M11 (Dell XPS Presample) | Yakumo Q8M Power64 XD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Two-Spindle / Modular | Two-Spindle / Modular | Two-Spindle / All-In-One |
| Dimensions (WxHxD) | 357mm x 36mm x 276mm / 14.10" x 1.42" x 10.87" | 358mm x 54mm x 272mm / 14.10" x 2.13" x 10.71" | 333mm x 47mm x 285mm / 13.1" x 1.85" x 11.2" |
| Weight of unit | 3510g / 7.72lbs | 4400g / 9.68lbs | 3985g / 8.77lbs |
| Weight of charger and cable | 440g / 0.97lbs | 1300g / 2.86lbs | 735g / 1.62lbs |
| Battery Weight | 470g / 16.59oz | 650g / 22.95oz | 675g / 23.83oz |
| Pointing Device(s) | Touchpad +Trackstick | Touchpad +Trackstick | Touchpad |
| Display Size | 15,4" | 15,4" | 15" |
| Display Resolution | 1920x1200 | 1920x1200 | 1024x786 |
| CPU | Pentium-M 1.7 GHz | Pentium4 2.40 GHz HT | Athlon 64 Mobile 3000+ |
| Memory Type | PC2700 DDR SDRAM | PC3200 DDR CL3.0 | PC2100 DDR SDRAM CL2.5 |
| Amount of Memory | 512 MB | 512 MB | 512 MB |
| Chipset Northbridge | Intel 82855PM (MCH) | Intel 865 | K8T800 |
| Chipset Southbridge | Intel 82801DBM ICH4-M | Intel ICH5 | VT8235 |
| Graphics Controller | Nvidia Geforce FX Go5650 128 MB DDR 300MHz /325MHz (core/memory) | ATi MR9700 128 MB DDR 445MHz/ 263 MHz (core/memory) | ATi MR9600 64 MB DDR 350MHz /200MHz (core/memory) |
| Hard drive bay | 2.5", 9.5 mm height | 2.5", 9.5mm height | 2.5", 9.5mm height |
| Ethernet | Broadcom 440x 10/100 MBit | 10/100 MBit | VIA compatible 10/100 MBit |
| Bluetooth-Radio | Dell Truemobile 1300 | option | No |
| Modem | PCTEL 2304WT V.92 MDC Modem | Smart Link 56k | Smart Link 56k |
| Audio | Sigma Tel C-Major | SigmaTel C-Major Audio | C-Media AC97 |
| Battery Capacity | 72Wh | 95Wh | 98Wh |
| DVD-/CD-R/RW-Drive | NEC ND-5100A | DVD+RW-Drive | Panasonic UJ815 A 2x/1x8x/ /16x8x24xDVD-R/-RW/ /CD-R/-RW (Multi-DVD)+2x DVD-RAM |
| Harddisc | Fujitsu MHT2060AT PL ATA-6 60 GB/4200rpm/2 MB | 80 GB | Seagate Momentus ST94011A ATA-6 40 GB/5400rpm/2 MB |
| PC-Card Slot(s) | 1x type II ( L) | 1x type II | 1x type II (R) |
| Floppy Drive | No | No | No |
| USB ports | 2x USB 2.0 (2x B) | 4x USB 2.0 | 4x USB 2.0 (R,B) |
| 1394 ports | 1x (L) | 1x | 1x (F) |
| IR port | IrDA 1.1 (L) | Yes (F) | Yes (F) |
| Serial Ports | Yes (B) | No | No |
| Parallel Ports | Yes (B) | No | Yes (B) |
| VGA out | Yes (B) | Yes | Yes (B) |
| DVI out | No | Yes (B) | No |
| PS/2-Connector | No | No | No |
| Headphone/ Microphone/ Line In Connector | Yes(L)/Yes(L) | Yes/Yes | Yes/Yes/No (F) |
| Video-In/Out | No/Yes ( B, S-Video ) | No/Yes (S-Video) | No/Yes (S-Video) |
| B=Back side, F=Front, L=Left side, R=Right Side | |||
The second part of the test is dedicated at the showdown between the GeForce Go 6800 and a high-performance desktop computer. Here we used an Intel D925XCV desktop motherboard, a Pentium 4 Processor 540 at 3.2 GHz and two Micron DDR2-533 modules at 512 MB each. Of course we used different graphics boards, both ATI's and NVIDIA's top models Radeon X800XT as well as GeForce 6800 GT, and the mainstream cards X700XT and GeForce 6600 GT.
Before talking about benchmarks, let's spend some time looking at Sager's N9860.
- Previous page Powermizer 5.0
- Next page Is It A Portable PC Or A Notebook?
