| VSA100 vs V3 Part II All performance graphs courtesy of Bonehed
After the release of the first article VSA100 vs V3 some months ago,
there was considerable controversy surrounding the idea that the V3 could be anywhere
close to as fast as a VSA100 based video card. Sweeping throughout the community
like an angry storm, the arguments raged on both sides and haven't yet subsided.
This got me thinking - maybe I should invest some more time and effort into this
investigation, and finally put this subject to rest. So I went to Ebay (again) and
won a V4 4500, which will take center stage in these tests. Heck, I needed one to
complete my collection anyways. Does the V3 have what it takes to keep up with it's
more sophisticated older brother, the V4 4500? Is the V5 5500 in single-chip mode
actually equal to a V4 4500? How do the cards stack up against each other in real
world gaming?
This article will attempt to delve into the heart
of the matter, and find out exactly the capabilities of the V5 5500, V4 4500 AGP,
and the V3 3000 in both older and newer games by using a series of benchmarks, objective
analysis, and overall performance observations.
The Contenders (to scale in relation with each
other):
You'll note that every single one of
the cards has a custom fan attached to the back of the PCB using double-sided tape.
This is Bonehed's patented technique to cool the card for overclocking, which we have
thoroughly explored in a later section. Only one of the cards, the V5 5500, has had
the heatsinks removed and re-attached using a high quality thermal paste. All the
others use the OEM thermal epoxy and sinks as they came from the factory. An
additional fan was attached to the V3 OEM heatsink to aid in cooling.
Specifications:
| Video Card |
V5
5500 AGP |
V4
4500 AGP |
V3
3000 AGP |
| Architecture |
VSA |
VSA |
Avenger |
| Clock Speed |
166x2 |
166 |
166 |
| Memory |
64
(32x2) SDRAM |
32
SDRAM |
16
SDRAM |
| Controller |
128bit |
128bit |
128bit |
| Bandwidth |
5.3GB/s |
2.7GB/s |
2.7GB/s |
| Megatexel
Fill Rate |
667 |
333 |
333 |
| Megapixel
Fill Rate |
667 |
333 |
166 |
| BIOS |
1.15
AGP |
1.15
AGP |
2.15.07-SD
AGP |
| Rendering |
32 and 16bit
color |
32 and 16bit
color |
16bit
color |
| FSAA |
RGSS
4x |
RGSS
2x |
n/a |
| Texture
Size |
2048x2048 |
2048x2048 |
256x256 |
| Compression |
FXT1
& DirectX |
FXT1
& DirectX |
n/a |
| RAMDAC |
350 |
350 |
350 |
| Packaging |
Retail |
Retail |
OEM
(Dell) |
As can be easily seen, the V5 is far
more powerful than the other two cards. Cut the V5 in half, and you have exactly the
same specs as a V4 4500. But we'll get to that in a bit. Note that the V4 4500
and V3 3000 have very similar specifications on paper, although the feature set of the
VSA100 is far superior with the large texture support, compression, and FSAA being the
biggest assets in my opinion.
[NEXT]
[Intro
| Test System/Scaling | Benchmarks | Overclocking
| Conclusion] |
