There are 4 parts to this
review, please use the pulldown below to browse sections or simply hit "Next"
at the bottom of each section to continue
Gaming Performance
Well the MP2400+ processors have ripped right through the Synthetic and Software/Production
Benchmarks. The numbers were pretty much inline with what we expected and now
its time to see how they handle the most enjoyable part of our evaluation process.
It's time to see how these babies handle a bit of gaming!!! Of the four benchmarks
we run to test gaming performance only the Quake III and DroneZ benchmarks will
utilize the Dual Processor setup.
MadOnion's 3DMark 2001se
is an update to the original 3Dmark2001. 3DMark has become the cornerstone of
benchmarking for gamers. This intensive direct 3D benchmark runs a video card
through the paces but also helps show the overall performance of your gaming
rig.
The MP 2400+ processors post a respectable score of 7531, which is a 120-point
gain over the MP2200+ processors. If this score looks a bit lower than what
you expected remember we are running a Geforce3 video card in our test platform.
Aquamark tests the effectiveness of the video card of the user's computer
under real world conditions. This means that AquaMark is not a demo-benchmark,
as it contains a fully working game engine. AquaMark has been optimized to compare
DX8 on different video cards and supports all necessary features such as vertexshader
or pixelshader, etc.
This benchmark is a monster and the MP2400+'s weren't really able to help the
Geforce3 overcome the Aquamark hurdle. The gain across the board was just under
a single frame per second.
DroneZ is a unique benchmark. DroneZ incorporates the use of Vertex
and Pixel Shaders, which are responsible for some of the most impressive examples
of illumination and bump mapping found. The graphics and visual effects are
truly amazing.
Here again the MP2400+ processors show a slight gain over the MP2200+'s.
Quake III Has been used for years as the gamers benchmark. This game
has the ability to run in SMP mode if enabled in the configuration file. Simply
changing the 0 to a 1 allows the Quake III engine to utilize both processors.
Gaining 5 FPS at the lower resolutions where the video card has less effect
on output and the processors are able to sway results the MP2400+ processors
post a respectable result of 220.1 FPS. That's just over a 4 FPS gain over the
MP2200+ setup.
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