Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 DDR Review – THG.RU

Introduction

It’s been almost three months since we first brought you the review of NVIDIA’s newest chipset, the NV-10 or GeForce 256 GPU. From the first review we had of this chipset, we’ve known there was a huge issue in regards to available memory bandwidth with the SDR GeForce board Proof was provided through extensive testing and comparison between the SDR and DDR reference boards and not just theoretical number crunching. To be honest, the DDR GeForce 256 performance is what we expected from the GeForce product line in the first place. Having the fastest pixel fill-rate in the world isn’t going to help you if your performance is bottlenecked by mediocre memory performance. With the arrival of our first released DDR GeForce 256 board, the Leadtek GeForce 256 DDR, we are now able to show you just what you’ve been missing out on.

The Company

Leadtek has been a dependable company based in Taiwan that manufactures graphics cards, LAN cards, modems, motherboards, and videoconference systems. We’ve come to expect a solid board from them as well as slightly more expensive designs and/or components for their slightly higher pricing. They do however try keeping the philosophy of shipping a high performance, feature rich board and not worrying too much about what software to bundle. Another interesting note is that Leadtek is known for a strong customer support. If you haven’t noticed, Leadtek continues to sell 3DLabs graphics cards (called the “L series”) although 3DLabs currently is selling direct. How can they do this? Certain large OEMs prefer the board layout and technical support provided by Leadtek. I’m not saying that 3DLabs isn’t a competent company but rather that Leadtek must offer some damn good work if OEMs are willing to dish out a few extra dollars on a large scale to have Leadtek’s product over 3DLabs.

The Card

The core graphics chip or heart of the Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 DDR is based on the GeForce 256 from NVIDIA. Unless you’ve been hiding in a cage for the past few months, you should know that the GeForce 256 chip is currently the fastest chip available to consumers. It offers leading edge 3D performance through a GPU that offers high fill-rate, hardware transform and lighting (T&L), reasonable DVD playback and now some very serious memory bandwidth thanks to the DDR upgrade. For more detail on the GeForce 256 GPU, please see our full review of the GeForce 256 GPU.

Other non-chipset specific features are the video output and DVI flat-panel connector on the WinFast card. The memory populated on the board is 6ns DDR SGRAM running at 150MHz. As for the cooling solution on the card, it seems to be the same as with the SDR Leadtek.

Fill-Rate and Memory Bandwidth

There’s nothing surprising here because the clock speed of the core is still 120 MHz and the memory speed is 300MHz like on our reference board. If we were to draw up some theoretical numbers, here is how things would stack up against the current competition.

As we can see from the data above, the GeForce DDR is clearly not the winner. However, with the architecture that ATI uses, the theoretical numbers are a bit deceiving and at the end of the day might be in the same ballpark as the GeForce DDR but not the home run king. In any case, it is very clear that the GeForce is on top of things once coupled with DDR memory.

What is DDR?

So what’s DDR memory anyhow? Let’s start with a couple of definitions before we go any further.

Clock cycle – a master timing signal that sets the operating pace of all other components. For example a 100MHz bus has a 10ns cycle time (1/10^6Hz) or commonly referred to as a period.

SDR – SDR stands for Single Data Rate where only one action occurs during either the rising or falling edge of the clock during the cycle. So in a waveform that has a rising and a falling edge, SDR only acts on half the cycle.

Ok, with those terms in mind, we can now look into what DDR is. DDR stands for Double Data Rate. Double Data Rate differs from SDR in that it is able to complete actions on both falling and rising edges of the clock cycle. Essentially you are getting double the work in the same amount of clock cycles. The WinFast GeForce 256 DDR is actually running at 150 MHz but with DDR, they claim 300MHz (2*150MHz) because they’re getting double the performance as they would out of SDR memory. Keep in mind that in this particular case of the Leadtek DDR GeForce board, SGRAM (Synchronous Graphic Random Access Memory) DDR memory is being used but DDR is also available in the SDRAM (Synchronous Random Access Memory) variety.

T&L

Everyone should be familiar with T&L by now and the fact that besides a few cool demos and benchmarks, we’re still waiting on the games to roll out that truly take advantage of this wonderful feature. Hardware T&L is still only found in the GeForce chipset contrary to what anyone else has said. Until S3’s S2000 has a driver that supports T&L and ATI releases its next generation Rage Fury MAXX, the sole hardware T&L consumer graphics card is the GeForce 256. There has been much speculation about the GeForce 256 not having that great of a T&L engine but there really hasn’t been any solid proof either way in my eyes. Mind you that much of this criticism has been made by the few competing companies that don’t offer T&L. For more information about T&L, check out the review of the first T&L demo title available.

Video

After playing around with my two test DVD’s, I found the DVD playback on my Sony television to be decent but not nearly as clear as viewing on my monitor. The DVD playback itself was fast on my test PIII 550 system and didn’t show any signs of dropped frames or obvious visual defects. Keep in mind these are purely subjective comments and are meant to be basic until we’re completed our technical DVD test suite. Overall, I would give the thumbs up to using the WinFast board for DVD playback and a so-so solution for pumping the video out to your entertainment center.

Software Bundle

The software bundle of the WinFast GeForce 256 DDR remains the same as it’s smaller SDR sibling. Here is what they have to offer:

Full versions of Asymetrix Web 3D, 3dfx and Digital Video Producer are some pretty handy applications if you’re into creating web content. Web 3D and 3dfx are 3D authoring tools. Digital Video producer lets is exactly what it sounds to be, a audio, video editing tool.

Colorific is basically video calibration software. With this you can fine-tune the display of your workstation.

3Deep software will give developers a way to optimize your display settings so that they can offer the visuals intended in their game. Colorific and 3Deep work best when used in conjunction.

InterVideo WinDVD is the bundled software DVD player.

RealiMation demo is another 3D authoring tool that’s quick and easy to use. Unfortunately it’s a 45 day trial so it’s shovel ware after that point.

Platinum VRCreator and WHIRL are VRML related softwares. VRCreator lets you create VRML content while WHIRL is a plug-in to let you see VRML.

As you can see, the WinFast board offers a bit more than it normally has in the past by offering a few graphic content creation programs that can be useful if you’re into personal web development or for just plain ole fun. If you could care less about graphics programs then you’ll probably consider most of the software package shovel-ware.

Competition

Recently there has been a bit stirring up in the graphics industry as a couple of new cards have been released and in the next few months, we can expect to see a few more surface. Let’s take a look at who’s up to what.

In a few months we can expect to see 3dfx launch their next generation of chipset that will contain some serious hardware that is aimed to put down some serious fill-rate performance. The cards will most likely be geared towards the high-end market as the more powerful configuration are expect to contain four graphics chips and up to 128 MBs of memory. The cost is sure to be high with this type of brute force approach but I’m sure power users and loyal 3dfx fans will be glad to shell out the big bucks for the possibly massive performance. Currently the VD3 3500 is their best offering but isn’t much to talk about. The VD3 3500 features a TV-tuner and respectable 16-bit 3D performance that hasn’t been cutting it for some time. Let’s home that 3dfx comes through with their next launch plans and comes out blazing with a product as good as their hype has made it up to be.

ATI has recently released their Rage Fury MAXX that sports high-fill rates, quality video playback but currently lacks hardware T&L. From what we saw in the review, the MAXX is going to need more time so that the ATI software engineers can fine-tune their drivers a bit more to keep up with the rest of the high-end players. At high resolution and color, the video card does well due to it’s awesome raw fill-rate and memory bandwidth resources but comes up a bit short on the rest of the tests. The big drawbacks to the MAXX are it’s price and lack of hardware T&L at the moment. We can expect the next generation to sport T&L but until that time, it’s at a disadvantage.

There isn’t any news out of Matrox right now besides their currently shipping G400 series of cards that offer average 3D performance (above average in 32-bit color modes), quality video output, dual-head display support and well-known visual quality. Besides having mediocre performance, the prices of the G400 series of cards aren’t that cheap either. Unless you really care for the feature set that these cards to offer, it’s not a very practical choice.

Packing a bit of head, S3 has jumped into the scene with their Diamond Viper II card that’s beginning to pick up in popularity as their drivers begin to shape up. Unlike most of the other competitors, S3 has been keeping a very aggressive price point. The card is pretty competitive in 3D performance and is beginning to offer better video playback quality. If S3 can get the drivers whipped into shape, they just might steal a few customers away from ATI and NVIDIA due to their lower cost. Keep in mind that they’re still working T&L functionality into their drivers so you’ll have to wait until they come through with their promises before you can take advantage of the built in T&L engine.

Driver Interface

Aside from a few minor text differences the driver interface of the WinFast GeForce 256 DDR remains identical to that of the SDR board. To take a peek at the drivers, click here.

Benchmark Expectations

Given a few months of time for driver development since the release of the SDR GeForce boards, I expect to see the WinFast board take home the trophy for basically all the tests. The hardware has the raw ability to take on any of the contenders and given the driver maturity, it should be able to flex it’s muscles without many problems from anyone. The only cards that may pose a challenge will be the MAXX and Viper II.

Overclocking

The first Leadtek GeForce board I had (the SDR version) wasn’t able to overclock too well in my general testing procedure. Keep in mind this procedure consists of running the full benchmark suite with no crashes or visual issues. This time around I had much better luck overclocking the graphics board from Leadtek. I was able to pull my rigorous test suite off at 155MHz core and 360MHz memory. As I’m always quick to point out, not all cards will overclock stable over their default clock settings. It is best to leave them at stock setting to ensure stable performance. You always need to remember that the boards were designed to run a stable long life at the suggested clock speeds and by overclocking; you’re drastically lowering that life expectancy. Also remember that there is no guarantee when it comes to overclocking so don’t buy just on the hopes you’re going to clock it at some insane rate unless you have some type of aftermarket cooling solution planned.

Benchmark Setup

I would like to make a few brief comments on the particular benchmark setup I use and why some people are upset that I don’t use a much faster CPU. The idea behind the “realistic” benchmark setup I use is that I am trying to show the graphic card performance of our average user. After attending LAN parties and talking with people about their systems over the net, I found out quickly that not everyone has the best gaming rig. Only small portions of us are able to afford the best CPU every few months or the newest platform to come out. These types of upgrades are costly and are much harder to do than simply replacing a graphics card. This is why I try to keep a happy medium when it comes to a benchmark setup. I do however realize that this may cause problems in situations like the ATI Rage Fury MAXX and S3’s Diamond Viper II. Due to the fact that their drivers are still not mature yet, they benefit from having a faster CPU. This will give them a slight boost under a few benchmarks and I realize this. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I am unable to test every platform and CPU speed with each card but I always try to mention when drivers aren’t very efficient in my reviews. Keep in mind that when this is the case, a faster CPU will bring up the performance a tad when you compare it with another card that has a mature driver. With that said, let’s take a look at our platform setup and then our benchmark results.

Benchmark Results – Shogo

We begin our testing with our aging Shogo DirectX benchmark at low resolution. In this mode we have a pretty even race as all the cards laugh at the challenge. Note that the only real card having trouble with this test is the G400 MAX. I’ve noted that there was better performance in previous drivers for the G400 series but the new drivers lost a little for whatever reasons.

Turning up the resolutions knob, we can see most of the card take a big hit in performance as the GeForce cards continue to perform excellently.

After putting Shogo into top gear we see many of the cards fall into the gutter as only the GeForce based cards and the Rage Fury MAXX offer reasonable performance levels.

Benchmark Results – Descent 3 DirectX

All of our cards but the VD3, which has issues with Descent 3 in non-Glide mode, breezed past the low resolution setting.

The competing cards continue to do well although the GeForce based cards still dominate the top spots. You’ll have noticed that the Rage Fury MAXX took a big hit when we jumped to 1024×768.

Note how much faster the WinFast GeForce DDR is than its SDR sibling. As we begin to move into high resolution/color testing, we’ll see this difference become more and more apparent.

Benchmark Results – Descent 3 OpenGL

There shouldn’t be much difference between the DirectX and OpenGL scores as long as each card has a decent ICD. You’ll note that the Viper II must have a highly optimized OpenGL ICD but only for Quake Arena as it doesn’t do too well here. Also note that the Matrox G400 MAX does work in OpenGL but at a very slow speed that I still haven’t had a chance to work with Matrox on. I’ll try to squeeze this in very soon for you Matrox fans.

All the cards, minus the Viper II, are still running very quick at the 1024×768 resolution. Note that even the TNT2 Ultra is keeping up pretty well.

We pound the work on as we enter the highest resolution setting in Descent 3 to bring all the cards, except the WinFast GeForce 256, to their knees.

Benchmark Results – Quake 3 Arena Normal

Now the fun begins are we start testing our toughest game benchmark. The GeForce boards dominate the top spots but every card in the line-up manages to break the 60 FPS barrier.

Things start to toughen up when we boost the resolution up a bit. The scores are in the same ballpark but it’s obvious that the DDR GeForce is the leader followed closely but the SDR GeForce based board.

We’re now in the highest resolution for our normal mode Quake test and scores prove to be a bit interesting. The Rage Fury MAXX manages to keep right besides the SDR GeForce while the Viper II trails not too far behind. However, the DDR GeForce cruises right along with a near 6 FPS lead over the SDR GeForce.

Benchmark Results – Quake 3 Arena High Quality

The top three boards are GeForce based with the Viper II trailing not too far behind. The G400 MAX isn’t doing too shabby either at a respectable 65.1 FPS.

The poor SDR GeForce falls off quickly as it starves for memory bandwidth. The Rage Fury MAXX and Viper II quickly pass it up but don’t gain even ground to touch the WinFast GeForce DDR.

We’ve now reached our toughest Quake Arena test and not one single card can break the 30 FPS still. Even the might overclocked GeForce DDR came up short of the magical barrier.

Benchmark Results – 3DMark 2000 16Bit

It’s humorously obvious that the SDR GeForce was absolutely held back by its lack of memory bandwidth. The WinFast GeForce DDR blows everyone away. Fear the overclocked performance as well. I noted that there were some visual issues for the Viper II. I’m not sure how valid the test score will be once it’s fixed.

S3 was kind enough to ship me a new driver that would feed my need for comparing the Viper II with the GeForce in a quad-texturing test. The Viper II appears to blow away all but the overclocked GeForce board. Note I said appears. Once again this test is possibly invalid for the Viper II as it has visual issues. Once the driver not only works but also works correctly, I’ll be happy to crown the Viper II our new quad texture fill-rate king.

Benchmark Results – 3DMark 2000 32Bit

Switching to 32-bit color fill rate test drags all the scores downward but really hurts the SDR GeForce board. The WinFast GeForce DDR still keeps a whopping lead over the rest of the competing cards.

Even with the new super fast driver, the Viper II falls to second place as the DDR GeForce takes top honors. I’m still very irked that S3 didn’t completely fix these drivers. I’m more than anxious to see what happens when things are all on an even playing level.

Benchmark Results – TreeMark

The higher memory speeds offer a slight advantage in the simple setting of TreeMark. Thanks to the hardware T&L unit in the GeForce boards, no one even comes close to competing with them. For more information on TreeMark, click here.

Obviously the T&L unit is the bottleneck in the complex option of TreeMark. You’ll notice that the memory speed doesn’t help much at all but the overclocked core speed is a huge boost in performance.

My overall hardware performance conclusion on the Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 DDR is that it is the number one performer, period. It showed dominating scores in our entire test suite leaving most of the competition in the dust. If the best 3D performing card is what you need, you need to look into a DDR based GeForce card.

Conclusion

After three months of waiting, the true GeForce 256 product has finally arrived. I can’t stress how glad I am that the DDR GeForce based boards like the Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 are beginning to roll out. At $309 (USD) for the DVI or $279 (USD) for the non-DVI WinFast GeForce 256, an added $50 over the price of your average SDR GeForce board gains you a huge increase in performance. The WinFast board provides you with the best 3D performance, a solid software package, adequate DVD playback performance and hardware T&L for future gaming titles. The price for the board isn’t cheap but who ever said high-end was cheap? If you’re going to pay the big bucks, buy the best.

Overlooking the competition, there is not one single card capable of outperforming the WinFast DDR based board at the moment. If you were to purchase on a price/performance comparison, the only possible competitor would be the S3 Viper II IF they get their act together and strengthen those drivers to increase overall performance and enable T&L capabilities. The ATI Rage Fury MAXX may come to mind but the problem with this board is its hefty price tag that doesn’t provide T&L just yet or proof that it’s fill-rate performance will ever match that of the DDR GeForce. Other than that, there isn’t much of a solution unless you’re looking for a dirt-cheap card where 3D isn’t that important.

The Leadtek was the first officially released DDR GeForce board tested in our labs and I can safely say that I highly endorse the purchase of this card for the high-end gamer. The Leadtek WinFast 256 GeForce DDR board is a very powerful graphics card and is an awesome upgrade to any system that is used for 3D gaming applications. If this weren’t the case, I wouldn’t have one installed in my home system for my nightly Quake Arena frag-fest action. 🙂