Battle of the Titans: Creative Labs Annihilator vs. Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 – THG.RU

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Introduction

With the release of the GeForce 256 by NVIDIA, we will begin to see a flurry of new choices appear on the horizon. The GeForce256-chip marked a new mile stone in mainstream graphics when it was released in October 1999, because it is the first chip with integrated ‘transform and lighting’. The inclusion of ‘TnL’ enables GeForce to take a lot of geometry-workload off the shoulders of the main system processor and gives the user the chance to enjoy 3D-graphics with a lot more polygons than before, resulting in much more detailed 3D-scenes. Currently, NVIDIA’s GeForce256 is clearly the fastest and most advanced 3D-chip available, so that graphics card with this new chip are certainly of very high interest to all hard-core gamers and power users out there. GeForce’s integrated ‘T&L’ is right now hardly used by any game though. Only Quake3 Arena and a few others can take advantage of this new technology right now. NVIDIA has promised that soon there will be a lot of ‘T&L-games’ available, but until then you won’t be able to take too much advantage of GeForce’s shiniest new feature.

GeForce256 and its Video-Memory

Tom’s Hardware Guide has reviewed NVIDIA’s GeForce256-chip thoroughly in several articles. If you should not be familiar with this chip yet, I’d recommend familiarizing yourself with GeForce with those three articles:

• Full Review NVIDIA’s new GeForce256 ‘GPU’
• GeForce256 and the First T&L-Title
• Over-clocking the GeForce256

After reading the above reviews, you will certainly remember that there is an important issue with GeForce and its local, ‘onboard’ or ‘video-‘ memory. NVIDIA designed GeForce so that it can either be equipped with normal and well-known SDRAM-memory or with the upcoming DDR (double data rate) memory instead. The latter memory type is basically double as fast as normal SDRAM, which almost doubles GeForce’s memory-bandwidth and therefore improves its 3D-performance at true-color and/or high resolutions significantly. Unfortunately there isn’t enough DDR-memory available right now, which is why you won’t find GeForce-cards from any vendor equipped with this new high-speed memory yet. Please keep this in mind before you go and buy any of the GeForce-cards right now, because it might not take long anymore and DDR-equipped GeForce cards will also become available. Those cards will probably ship for a higher price but they will enable GeForce to show its full 3D-gaming potential.

The Competitors of GeForce256

I would like to mention two important competitors of NVIDIA’s GeForce256-chip.

ATi recently released its dual-Rage128 Pro chip card, called ‘Rage Fury MAXX‘. This card does not include any integrated ‘transform and lighting’, which makes it a lot less sophisticated than GeForce. However, Fury MAXX comes with a fill rate that’s even a tad higher than GeForce’s fill rate, which is why it competes pretty well against GeForce in today’s games. The price of Rage Fury MAXX ranges in the same area as the GeForce-cards that are discussed here.

Please find a very detailed preview of ATi’s Rage Fury MAXX in comparison to NVIDIA’s GeForce256 in the following article:

• Preview of the Double Whopper – ATI’s Rage Fury MAXX

S3-Diamond is also just about to start shipping their new ‘Savage2000‘-chip, which you can find in the new ‘Viper II’. This product has a hard time to compete against GeForce’s and Rage Fury MAXX’s high fill rate, but it includes an integrated ‘T&L’ and it is a master at handling highly detailed textures, thanks to its texture-compression feature. S3-Diamond’s Viper II will be cheaper than the GeForce-cards.

We are currently working on a full review of the Viper II, but we can offer a first look at Savage2000 in the following article:

• S3 Savage 2000 Preview

The Contestants

Thus far we have competitive products from Creative Labs and Leadtek that I’ll be reviewing. As I receive other boards, I’ll post an updated review with the test scores and give you an overview of what the new boards have to offer. For now, I’ll concentrate on the ‘here and now’ with the two boards in the lab. I’ll take a close look at what the Creative Labs Annihilator and Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 have to offer in terms of hardware, bundled software, and overclocking capability.

This is the 3D-Annihilator from Creative LAbs

Creative Labs was the first graphics card manufacturer to release a GeForce product that I know of. As a matter of fact, the GeForce reference board I received from NVIDIA was actually a Creative Labs sample. Creative has a reputation for bringing us top-notch PC sound cards and various multimedia upgrade kits (DVD drives/decoders, Modems, WebCams) but has recently become a reputable name in the PC Graphics cards arena as well. Creative Labs’ graphics cards are known for offering a great bang for your buck by not supplying anything fancy, but giving people what they really want at a good price. However, Creative has recently come up with something interesting , a Beta “Unified driver” allows you to run Glide titles with non-3dfx chipsets. Now people who can’t live without Glide-titles can run those games on other Creative Labs cards as well. 3Dfx is far from happy about it, but it’s certainly a welcome thing to many customers. All things considered, Creative has done well by offering a stable inexpensive board to the masses.

That’s what Leadtek’s WinFast GeForce256 looks like.

Leadtek, a Taiwanese company, has been around since 1986 offering similar products but also offering Motherboards, LAN cards and video conferencing products. The products manufactured by Leadtek are geared slightly different than Creative’s in the sense that they offer a slightly more expensive product in return for feature-richer boards. However, the same principal concept of providing a board without software bundles is something they do have in common with Creative LAbs. Leadtek’s GeForce-solution is also based on NVIDIA’s reference-design.

The Features

First, lets take a look at the non-GeForce specific features of each card. This lets us see implementation specific differences between the two cards.

Note: Red text signifies a general advantage over the other card.

Looking at the above features, I see that the cards are pretty balanced except when I get to the video output feature. Leadtek has not only equipped its card with a video out but a DVI connection for flat panels as well. This isn’t too shabby for no added cost over the Creative Labs board. Another feature difference you will note is the memory speed. Leadtek’s Geforce-board is equipped with slightly faster memory, which could give it at least a theoretical advantage, especially when you try to overclock it.

Software bundles

Apparently both companies decided to package some software that they felt would be useful to the consumer. Most of us have come to know these types of software as “shovel-ware” which means software that is useless to most people who end up throwing it away. In this case, I believe there are some pretty useful utilities and applications. Ranging from full-fledged 3D software applications to video enhancing utilities.

Creative provides the bare essentials by at least providing the software DVD player so that you can play movies on your PC if you have a DVD drive. On the other hand, Leadtek forks over the goods with a nice line-up of applications that can be useful to some. Granted not everyone cares about producing web content, particularly not VRML, but it seems to be a nice addition nowadays since everyone’s on the web.

The Windows98-Driver of the Creative Labs Annihilator

Blaster Control is what Creative adds to the display properties adding informational windows as well as configuration sections. In this particular window we can see some basic adapter information.

After clicking the report button in the general information window, you get this nifty little summary.

Here we have the monitor adjustment section. It enables you to pre-adjust your screen on the monitor before you fine-tune it with your monitor-adjustments.

In case you toss the Colorific program and/or need to adjust your color settings through software, you can come to this section of the Blaster Control utility.

The Windows98-Driver of the Creative Labs Annihilator, Continued

This screen offers the same functionality as the standard windows desktop settings except that you can change the desktop color and resolution settings at the same time vs. having to set resolution and color separately.

Here’s where we’re getting to the more sophisticated stuff. We can change some generic settings in this window but the advanced button is where we’ll dig into some of the more interesting options.

Here you have all the advanced DirectX adjustments that you may want to adjust. Notice that Creative Labs actually provide a ‘Disable-VSYNC’-option for D3D-based games.

In the Video Control tab, you have the ability to adjust output video but for what, I have no clue since there is no video out capabilities on this board. I tried to see if this settings effected D3D or OpenGL games but it didn’t.

The Windows98-Driver of the Creative Labs Annihilator, Continued

This panel let’s you adjust all the OpenGL settings, which might come in handy to make those picky games or applications look better or run faster.

Here we have a few miscellaneous advanced options that you might need. The memory speed adjustment is here too but the real overclock utility has the core adjustment too.

Creative Labs supply a dedicated overclocking tool for the ‘Annihilator’, which is certainly of interest to most of you.

The Windows98-driver of the Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256

Here we have the information window for the WinFast GeForce 256. If you click on the Driver Update or Technical Support buttons, you’re forwarded to the appropriate website.

Leadtek has not only offered the ability to set your gamma settings but also to set-up schemes. This can be handy in case you have a program with not-so-hot gamma settings within it.

This is the control panel for your output devices. The flat-panel was grayed out because I didn’t have a panel hooked up.

Leadtek provides its own desktop setting section too. This tab leads to quite a few other options windows like the overclocking utility, taskbar setup, and the advanced settings for D3D/OpenGL.

The Windows98-driver of the Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256, Continued

The Speed Runner lets you tweak the clock settings for the core and memory speeds as well.

Another handy option from the WinFast display properties window is the option to enable a taskbar option to quickly get to your favorite options.

With the taskbar enabled you get shortcuts to settings as well as display property windows.

This is the main D3D settings window. Unfortunately there isn’t an option to ‘Disable VSYNC’ for D3D-games. From this window we can get to a couple of more D3D options. You can make profiles for the D3D settings, which might be useful for certain programs that need particular settings.

The Windows98-driver of the Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256, Continued

Here we have the rest of the D3D options. Nothing too exciting but who knows when they might come in handy to make certain games work. You can save those settings into a profile to load when you want to start that particular application.

The OpenGL settings are all here with the ability to setup profiles for certain programs.

Here are the last few options available that work with monitor specific settings.

Overclocking

Not everyone will try to overclock their board but I tried my best and with reasonable cooling to see what each board could do. I’m sure you could go to the extreme and replace the cooling solution with something better but I wanted to test what we could get out of the shipping boards. I was surprised to see that the Leadtek board with its superior design and superior memory chips could not clock higher than the Creative board. As a matter of fact, the Creative board was able to run its memory 5 MHz faster than the Leadtek-card. I’m not sure if the memory or the board layout is to blame but I tried for hours to get things to work with no success. To be considered “stable” the boards had to run all our tests without crashing or visual defects. Fortunately each board was stable up to its limit, then it just fell off when it couldn’t handle the next higher speed anymore. Keep in mind that not everyone will see the same stable settings, because the ‘overclockability’ depends on the individual Geforce and memory chips. Some have a higher margin than others and you might be lucky or not.

Test Configuration

Benchmark Results

I have included some released boards from other companies in the close price range of the GeForce boards, as well as the TNT2 Ultra, to give you an idea of where the two boards sit overall. Keep in mind that the focus of the results is on the two GeForce boards and not the existing boards on the market. They were provided for your convenience. The Matrox G400 MAX had some issues with its TurboGL and the latest version of Q3 Arena. I tried a few tricks to get the board to run properly but it just failed over and over with crashes. The default OpenGL ICD was used to generate the test scores. Also note that DMZG is unfortunately not included in this reviews test suite due to bugs that are currently being worked out of the demo. Benchmark results from DMZG at the moment are skewed by a vsync lock built into the game. We will bring the benchmark back as soon as the bug is worked out.

Shogo results

Both GeForce boards are neck and neck even when overclocked. At this resolution the CPU can be the bottleneck as well as a slower driver. Most of the cards in the line-up are at about the same speed but this isn’t the resolution why most people will have the faster graphics card for.

Now that I raised the resolution a tad we can start to see the little advantages to the overclocking. The difference between the two boards is minimal but you shouldn’t be too surprised by this. The big thing you can see is how the GeForce based boards start to leave the pack behind.

At our highest resolution in Shogo, the overclocked cards shine about 5 FPS ahead of the normally clocked cards. The WinFast GeForce squeaks ahead of the stock Annihilator by almost a frame but that’s not such a big deal. The remaining chipsets that were able to run in this mode stumble back as the GeForce boards rip forward. Note the 3dfx board ran with various missing textures so it failed the test.

Descent 3 DirectX Results

You’ll note the slower clocked WinFast board edges ahead of the Annihilator but it’s most likely noise in our testing. An error or 1-2% is not an uncommon thing. The driver maturity of the TNT2 Ultra shows as it manages to pass it’s younger more powerful sibling up by a few frames.

The difference between the two cards is minimal even when overclocked. Note the 5 MHz advantage of the Annihilator is only gaining .6 FPS in this particular test. This benchmark is a bit too easy now for these high-end consumer cards. Things should change a bit as we jump into the next higher resolution.

At this resolution we should see the biggest differences but due to the fact that the hardware and software are so similar, we really don’t see one much faster than the other. The VD3 card failed to run the test by crashing into a blank screen.

Descent 3 OpenGL Results

We are in low-resolution land again so there isn’t much of a difference between the two competing boards. The TNT2 Ultra manages to keep up the pace and almost tie for the lead. Unfortunately the 3dfx and Matrox boards OpenGL ICD didn’t care to run Descent3.

No surprises here as the overclocked boards almost reach a 10% boost in performance but both boards are still basically in a tie in all cases. The TNT2 Ultra isn’t doing too shabby as it pulse a relatively close 3rd place.

The base clocked Leadtek board has been edging out the stock Creative board by a very small amount. In this case we see it’s best win yet with a small 1.5 FPS win. You’ll note on this non-TnL title that the TNT2 Ultra still keeps up there with the big boys because it’s fill rate is not that far off from the GeForce.

Quake 3 Arena – Normal 640x480x16

With the release of the newest Q3 Arena we were able to really hammer the boards. You’ll note that on average the framerates are lower than the previous release. You’ll note that the CPU is still holding back the GeForce based cards. The VD3 manages to almost sneak up on the GeForce but falls 10 FPS short of the task.

We’re also providing DEMO002 this time around because in some circumstances this demo is actually harder than the first. Although it’s a different demo, the same story is told as the GeForce boards hit a magical wall and the VD3 is right on their heels.

Quake 3 Arena – Normal 1024x768x16

Yet another tie between the GeForce boards even when overclocked. It seems like the WinFast board is slightly faster so even when the uneven overclocked scores are looked at, the two boards still seem to tie.

Nothing new in these results as they just support what we’re seeing over and over again. The slight difference in scores don’t really mean much given that we’re looking at less than one percent difference between the two boards.

Quake 3 Arena – Normal 1600x1200x16

The biggest gains for overclocking can really be noticed in settings like these, where the resolution and/or color modes are high. You can see the overclocked boards pulled more than 10% gains this time around. The Leadtek board manages another win but it’s so slight that the win is only for bragging rights and not functionality.

The overclocked boards keep the performance streak going as they surpass the average 10% performance gain. The Winfast GeForce card squeeze yet another win but not enough to make any real noise about.

Quake 3 Arena – High Quality 640x480x32

The added memory speed of the overclocked Annihilator seems to have gained it a little over a frame of the slightly slower WinFast board in this test. This may not seem like much but with the CPU being the bottleneck, it did come a surprise to me to see any leads at all. The faster video memory is benefiting the high quality setting more than the normal setting. Note that the VD3 does not work in 32-bit mode.

Although less noticeable here, a similar scene as in DEMO001 occurs. The faster memory speed achieved in the Annihilator scores the Creative board an advantage where normally it didn’t. Things might become a bit clearer as we raise the resolution.

Quake 3 Arena – High Quality 1024x768x32

One again we have the Creative board winning the top honors in the overclocking area while the Leadtek WinFast board pulls slightly ahead in it’s stock condition.

As we get into a decent resolution, the story doesn’t change whatsoever as the Creative board pulls into first again while the Leadtek board stocker keeps it’s tiny lead over the base Creative board.

Quake 3 Arena – High Quality 1600x1200x32

Although both stock boards are running way too slow to play at, the WinFast board pulls nearly 10% ahead of the Creative Annihilator. I guess the WinFast board is benefitting from some faster memory settings, but is it enough to make it worth the trouble? Strangely enough the higher memory clock didn’t seem to help the Annihilator at this high of a resolution.

As with DEMO001, the WinFast board pulls ahead in both the overclocked and stock board positions. In any case, all the boards are way too slow to even bother playing with at this setting.

Ok, we’ve suffered through enough. Both boards are going to be neck and neck even when overclocked. The driver performance is also very similar so I doubt you’ll have any problems there as well. In any case you can always use the reference drivers if you feel one of the companies isn’t pulling their weight in the driver area..

Conclusion

Creative Labs has once again released an excellent product that offers high-end performance for the masses. It doesn’t come with all the bells and whistles but it does come with a reliable board that’s backed by the Creative name and providing you with drivers that support some of the leading edge features (Glide wrapper, support for Stencil buffer to create shadowing effects). The Annihilator is an excellent 3D performer that offers an average GeForce board at a decent price. Although the list price of this card is at $249, it’s available in a variety of stores at a lower price (as low as $210).

Leadtek brings us the WinFast GeForce 256 equipped with more features, silightly faster memory-modules at faster timing and a somewhat larger software package. I was a bit disappointed that my review board didn’t clock as high as I hoped it would. The faster memory didn’t prove much to me, although it’s arguably a touch faster when clocked the same speed as the Creative board. The TV-out feature can prove very practical however, particularly for DVD-playback on your television, and it cannot be found on the Creative Labs product. If you should be looking to get a flat panel next year sometime then you’ll also appreciate the DVI connector. The Leadtek board is a bit harder to get a hold of and the pricing is pretty solid at $249, which makes it a little more expensive than the Creative GeForce solution, but you get a better equipped board that’s slightly faster than Creative’s Annihilator.

My decision is pretty solid here. If you want a ‘no-bullshit’-GeForce based board without any special features besides kick butt 3D performance, go pick up the Creative board at the cheapest price available. You can probably pick it up easier and at $20 less than the Leadtek. However, if you aren’t decided between both boards, grab the Leadtek if you can find it. For a slightly higher price you can pick up the added software bundle and have video out that you might find useful in the future. Being able to pump video through your TV to show off DVD movies or MPEG clips can be useful and with flat panels coming around the corner, you might regret not getting a card with the DVI connection. Stay tuned for a GeForce round-up and a review of S3-Diamond’s Viper II review next week. I wish all our US readers a Happy Thanksgiving!