Albatron Geforce 4 MX480 8X AGP Videocard Review
http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/alba480/a7_affiliate.JPGSince its founding in 1984, Albatron began by providing large screen multimedia
monitors, rear projection systems and multimedia plasma displays by using the
brand name "Monivision". Albatron is the leading manufacturer in corporate
presentations, education training, video conferencing, and public information
display and flight information industry right now. ( find more about Monivision
at http://www.chun.com.tw ) From this year, Albatron will not only provide large
screen display product but also computer industry specific products. In March
of 2002, Albatron released Intel and AMD processor based motherboards that adopted
products of the world’s famous chipset manufacturers. Meanwhile, we will launch
high-end graphic cards designed to create a dynamic display.
PRODUCT INTRODUCTION
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Face the facts, not everyone out there has a deep wallet for computer gear.
Some videocards on the market now are going for a lot of money and are filled
with more features than you can really list, but do you really need all the
features? Maybe you want a videocard which performs well and allows you to play
recent games with no problems and will leave some money in your pocket for that
memory upgrade or even a new case. After a week of testing I think I have a
great option for you. Albatron’s MX variety of cards have been reviewed here
before and were quite a surprise in the dollar/performance ratio due to their
great overclocking abilities. The MX440 was reviewed HERE in September and in
essence is the baby brother to the card I will be reviewing today. The one difference
which sets these two card apart is that the MX480 is capable of running at 8X
AGP which seems to be the standard in the computing world of today. Oh, and
as a kicker, Albatron splurged and packed on some nice 3.6ns BGA memory onboard
just to make the overclocking even more successful. So, does this card measure
up? Let the review begin…..
PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS
Ok, what could Albatron squeeze into a videocard that is worth US$90 bucks.
Well….
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MX440-8X (NV18) chipset
1. AGP 8X Provides double the bandwidth of AGP 4X, X2. 1GB/sec. vs. 1.1GB/sec.
AGP 8X enables more complex models and detailed textures, creating richer and
more lifelike environments. Uninterrupted data flow allows for smoother video
streaming and faster, more seamless game play.
2. Video Processing Engine (VPE) Integrated high-definition Video Processing
Engine delivers the highest quality DVD, video, and display output available
in the market today. Integrated hardware MPEG2 decoder reduces CPU utilization
for DVD playback to provide a longer viewing experience.
3. Accuview Antialiasing (AA) The Accuview Antialiasing subsystem with advanced
multisampling hardware delivers full-scene antialiased quality at performance
levels never before seen.
4. Lightspeed Memory Architecture II LMA II boosts effective memory bandwidth
by up to 300%. Radical new technologies including Z-occlusion culling, fast
Z-clear, and auto pre-charge effectively multiply the memory bandwidth to ensure
fluid frame rates for the latest 3D and 2D games and applications.
5. nView Display Technology The nView hardware and software technology combination
delivers maximum flexibility for multi-display options, and provides unprecedented
end-user control of the desktop experience. nView allows end-users to select
any combination of multiple displays, including digital flat panels, analog
CRTs, and TVs, and to modify the display properties using an intuitive software
interface.
Specification are given to you courtesy of Albatron’s Website.
PRODUCT COMPOSITION & FEATURES
Just what do you get with this economical purchase?
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Upon opening the box you will get….
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A driver CD, a free copy of WinDVD (software DVD viewing suite) and the usual
owners manual.
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A video-out cable, a S-Video to composite converter and a composite video cable
to hook the card to your TV.
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And you will get your videocard.
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This card in particular is Dual Display capable and gives you a selection of
either a VGA connection for a CRT monitor or a DVI connector for that new digital
LCD TFT flat panel you just purchased. But hey, if you have a 60 inch projection
screen TV, you can hook it up to the video-out and play your favorite computer
game theater-style.
http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/alba480/a7.JPG
Covering the GPU core and the 3.6ns Samsung memory is an all aluminum heatsink
with fan. This is a great feature on a budget card and should help in the overclocking
department.
http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/alba480/a6.JPG
The only concern that I had is the improper orientation of the cooling fins
on the memory bank under the "AGP 8X" label. For better cooling, the
fins should be oriented perpendicular to the way they are currently oriented.
This will allow some air to flow through the fins instead of being blocked off
as it is now. The way that it is oriented currently, it will allow the memory
in this section of the heatsink to be warmer than the memory cooled by the other
section of the heatsink which will cause a relative difference between the memory
bank operating temperatures. Uneven cooling can lead to overclocking instability
and could really hinder the card’s high end overclock.
But! Does this minor problem really affect this card? Let’s see in the benchmarking…..
BENCHMARKING & OVERCLOCKING
This is what I am going to be benchmarking the card with.
http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/alba480/testbed.JPG
The benchmarking testbed is comprised of:
Intel P4 2.4Ghz with 533Mhz FSB
Via P4PB Ultra Motherboard with Factory Bios
256 Meg Stick of Crucial PC2700 DDR333
P4X400 Chipset
Albatron GF4 480 8X AGP using Detonator 41.09 Drivers
Integrated LAN
Integrated Sound
Via Hyperion 4.45
Windows 2000 SP3
I have to say that benchmarking on some of the tech sites of today has gotten
a little too much. In some instances downright insane. Posting comparison chart
after chart after chart just gets me frustrated and I (like most readers), just
skip through those pages to get to the overclocking or the 3dmark section. I
know that most of the readers out there want to see how the card performs and
yes, I will illustrate that to you. But, I am not going to test the card in
every possible configuration just to confuse and demean you. I find that some
sites do this to look overly smart or professional when in reality, it just
pisses readers off.
I’m going to keep the benchmarking sweet and simple with driver defaults. I
am going to use 3dmark2001se to help me benchmark from the stock memory and
core speed to the highest level it can obtain without any artifacts. Once that
threshold overclocking level (Using Rivatuner) is obtained, I am going to use
these benchmarking programs to test the card at stock and the highest overclock
settings. This way you will see the stock values and the performance increase
you will get by overclocking.
The programs are:
3Dmark2001se (Synthetic Direct3D Benchmark)
Gl Excess v1.1a (Synthetic OpenGL Benchmark)
Quake 3 Timedemo1 benchmark (Real-life OpenGL Gaming Benchmark)
HardOCP’s Retail UT2K Benchmarking program (Real-life Direct3D Gaming Benchmark)
Let’s say we get on with it….
3Dmark 2001SE Benchmarking
Ok, lets see how many 3Dmarks we will get with the stock card settings of 275Mhz
Core and 513Mhz Memory
http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/alba480/3dm275m513.gif
Not a bad result seeing that we are using everything stock and no driver tweaks.
Let’s start some overclocking shall we.
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Bumping the core up 25Mhz to 300Mhz and the memory up 27Mhz to 540Mhz resulted
in a significant jump of ~400 3dmarks. Pretty impressive for a minor overclock.
Let’s push the threshold….
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Pushing the core up another 24Mhz to 324Mhz and the memory up another 27Mhz
to 567Mhz scored another 204 3dmark increase.
http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/alba480/3dm341m595.gif
Ah hell, lets further the overclocking to a bump of 17Mhz to 341Mhz core and
the memory up another 28Mhz to 595Mhz. And the result is yet another increase
of 148 3dmarks. I’m liking the overclocking results. Let’s test out the overclocking
ceiling of this fine videocard.
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many people say, the fun has to end some time and the fun did finally end with
this card. The core could only handle 9Mhz more without having any artifacts
and topped out at 350Mhz. The ram mind you really pulled up the slack and could
be bumped up a further 55Mhz to an AMAZING 650Mhz. You can really see that the
high quality Samsung 3.6ns memory really does help in obtaining that all important
overclock. Now, just to make sure that it was stable at that high of an overclock,
I played a frame-busting 1 hour of Unreal Tournament 2003 to see if the card
failed. But did it falter? Nope, not a bit! Through this final overclock I was
able to obtain a final 3Dmark score of 7815 3Dmarks. That represents another
262 3DMark increase and a 910 3DMark increase overall. Not bad at all for a
sub $100 videocard! =D
Ok, now 350Mhz core and 650Mhz memory speed will represent the maximum overclock
settings that will be used for the remainder of the review along with a comparison
to the stock value.
BENCHMARKING & OVERCLOCKING (cont’d)
GLExcess v1.1a Benchmarking
Now that we have seen the performance increase from a Direct3D perspective,
let’s see how the card performs while under stock and maximum overclock conditions
using an OpenGL rendering benchmarking program. A good OpenGL benchmarking program
I use is GLexess ver1.1a.
Let’s see how well it went.
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In a complete stock situation, the card faired very well and came up with a
result of 4955.
http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/alba480/gl350.650.gif
Now bumping the core and memory speeds up to 350 and 650 Mhz, we received an
increase of 759 XSMARKS. Remember, GLexcess marking scheme is a little different
than 3DMark 2001se and an increase of 759 XSMARKS indicates a reasonable increase
and yet another impressive overclocking improvement. I’m liking this card more
and more. It seems to bring back the days when overclocking was fun and you
didn’t have to have a computer science degree to overclock your computer components
like today.
Quake 3 Arena Timedemo1 Benchmarking
Ok, enough with the synthetic benchmarking programs. I know you want to know
what real life gaming performance increases you are going to see. Quake 3 benchmarking
will show you just how well a successful overclock will quicken up your gaming
in an OpenGL rendering environment.
http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/alba480/q3stock.gif
With all the eye-candy turned up to maximum and the resolution set to 1024×768,
the result is a score of 173.7 fps. At this performance level, the game is VERY
enjoyable with no slowdowns or hiccups noted. Any hey, with the savings, you
can buy yourself 5 more games to play instead of being stuck with one and a
expensive videocard.
http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/alba480/q3350.650.gif
But wait, we haven’t even overclocked the card yet. With the overclock hitting
the ceiling, we shook out yet another 23.4 fps and increased the result to 197.1
fps. At this level, gameplay is silky smooth.
Unreal Tournament 2003 Retail ardOCP Benchmarking
HardOCP was kind enough to release a great benchmarking program addition that
pretty well automates the process of extracting performance results from the
retail version of Unreal Tournament 2003. I have been gaming with this card
for a while now and have to say that gaming has been great. Mind you, I have
been playing at 1024×768, but I usually like a bigger resolution to pop the
heads off of my enemies during an online match.
Just as a disclaimer, this is what was used:
- Test was run using the High Quality Option
– Test was run using the Direct3D engine to extract real-life D3D gaming performance
results.
– Test was run using the full version of Unreal Tournament 2003
– Test was run using the Custom_MaxDetail.ini provided by ard|OCP.
– Test was run at a resolution of 1024×768 (aka 17in Monitor).
So, under stock conditions, is the new addition to the Unreal family playable?
Well, wait no more…
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Well, the average numbers are not really that bad. But they could be better.
It really depends on your needed threshold frames per second to get that all
important head shot in a deathmatch. Some may find these results great for their
money, some may think that it could be a lot better. Let’s see if overclocking
will narrow the gap.
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With the overclock in place, you will expect an average increase of 10-13 fps.
This increase in performance will make gaming acceptable to pretty good. I have
no problem gaming with this card and I am used to gaming on a 9700pro and that
should speak volumes.
CONCLUSIONS & AFTERTHOUGHTS
Seems like all you hear about in the hardware world is the high end cards.
But are these cards for the everyday gamer, nope. Do you think that most people
have US$200-$400 to spend on one component, nope. People today like to have
a blend of value and performance and that is where the Alabatron MX480 delivers.
But, to take advantage of the 8X AGP, you would have to have a 8X capable motherboard.
If you do indeed have one of these motherboards, you are on the smart road to
efficient computing because you invested your money into a decent motherboard
instead of a highend videocard. My tip to you the reader would be to invest
in a faster CPU, RAM and/or a motherboard and you will get a performace boost
you could use in all your applications. Couple that smart purchase with a decent
mainstream videocard and you won’t miss the 5000 3dmarks or the 200 frames per
second in a game because remember, your eye can only process approximately 60
fps and the rest is only bragging rights. Face it, bragging rights do not keep
some extra cash in your pocket. Save some money and overclock a lower end card
to save money. Hey, it’s the overclocking trend of today, RUN WITH IT!
Because of the performance to value ratio of this videocard, I am awarding
it the "Great Product Award". You can’t expect much more for a sub
US$100 card.
Pro’s:
- Very Inexpensive
– Overclocks Amazingly Well
– Great Value
– Good Performance
– Good Core and Memory Cooling
– DVI & VGA outputs (Dual Display Capable)
– TV-out
– Includes all the cables needed to get your TV hooked up (GREAT BONUS!).
Con’s:
- No game included (Even a cheap game is better than nothing)
– No DirectX 8 Support (Core limitation, not Albatron’s)
http://www.tweaknews.net/img/awards/great.jpg
If you have any further questions about this videocard, email me HERE.
Thanks tweaknews For the news!
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