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difference in performance for 5500PCI? (Read 1950 times)
ultima
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difference in performance for 5500PCI?
25.11.13 at 16:46:47
 
Hey guys,

I've been searching the net, but can't seem to find a conclusive answer.

The 5500PCI, is capable of running in a 66Mhz PCI slot, but will it actually run that 66Mhz?
And will there be a performance hit when running at 33Mhz pci? as in, is the 33Mhz pci bus wide enough for all the data to get through comfortable?

the faster the cpu behind it, the more data it would produce I asume, so I will be doing some testing on my rig, as it has:

1: a powerfull enough cpu to test this
2: both 33Mhz and 66Mhz pci slots.

Will be testing on different resolutions, up to 1600x1200x32
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3DFX Playrig:

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Dual Opteron 280 @ 2.4Ghz (4 cores)
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3DFX Voodoo5 5500MAC PCI
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trevormacro
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Re: difference in performance for 5500PCI?
Reply #1 - 25.11.13 at 17:20:25
 
Hi,

If you put a V5 5500 PCI in a PCI-X slot it will be more fast than in a PCI simple slot.

Better to use the PCI-X slot.

Trevor.
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ultima
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Re: difference in performance for 5500PCI?
Reply #2 - 25.11.13 at 19:40:48
 
I assume that is correct, but since I can't find any conclusive data on the net, I am gonna test the difference.
You can find a lot of PCI vs AGP for the 5500, but nowhere it states what kinda pci slot is used.
Since those benchmark are made for the masses, I assume it is tested on a 32bit/33Mhz slot, mine are 64bit/66Mhz, so I wanna see what the difference is, within the same system.
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3DFX Playrig:

Aerocool Strike-X Air
SuperMicro H8DAE
Dual Opteron 280 @ 2.4Ghz (4 cores)
4 x 1GB PC3200
3DFX Voodoo5 5500MAC PCI
WD 160GB ATA100/133
Diamond MonsterSound MX300
Windows2000 SP4
 
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trevormacro
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Re: difference in performance for 5500PCI?
Reply #3 - 25.11.13 at 20:26:34
 
ultima wrote on 25.11.13 at 19:40:48:
I assume that is correct, but since I can't find any conclusive data on the net, I am gonna test the difference.
You can find a lot of PCI vs AGP for the 5500, but nowhere it states what kinda pci slot is used.
Since those benchmark are made for the masses, I assume it is tested on a 32bit/33Mhz slot, mine are 64bit/66Mhz, so I wanna see what the difference is, within the same system.


Ok so we will know if it's right. Good Benchmarks. I will follow you here.
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ultima
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Re: difference in performance for 5500PCI?
Reply #4 - 25.11.13 at 22:50:24
 
And I forgot to mention, all those benchmarks online don't show any noticable difference in performance between a pci and agp, so if it is true that the pci is tested on a 33Mhz slot, and it is almost on par with the agp, it means 2 things:

1: the agp part is just physical difference, it doesn't use agp features or it's added speed
2: if the pci really does run @66Mhz, it should be faster then it's agp counterpart, which performs the same as a pci @ 33Mhz

Only downside is I don't have an agp version anymore for comparison. Sad
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« Last Edit: 25.11.13 at 22:51:20 by ultima »  

3DFX Playrig:

Aerocool Strike-X Air
SuperMicro H8DAE
Dual Opteron 280 @ 2.4Ghz (4 cores)
4 x 1GB PC3200
3DFX Voodoo5 5500MAC PCI
WD 160GB ATA100/133
Diamond MonsterSound MX300
Windows2000 SP4
 
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goriath
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Re: difference in performance for 5500PCI?
Reply #5 - 26.11.13 at 00:36:28
 
ultima wrote on 25.11.13 at 22:50:24:
And I forgot to mention, all those benchmarks online don't show any noticable difference in performance between a pci and agp, so if it is true that the pci is tested on a 33Mhz slot, and it is almost on par with the agp, it means 2 things:

1: the agp part is just physical difference, it doesn't use agp features or it's added speed
2: if the pci really does run @66Mhz, it should be faster then it's agp counterpart, which performs the same as a pci @ 33Mhz


1: Indeed, all 3dfx AGP adaptors are basically PCI adaptors simply "ported" on the AGP bus. They don't support typical features introduced with the AGP standard, like DIME, fast writes and sideband addressing, the latter except for Banshee and Voodoo3. AGP speeds are 2x max for Banshee/Voodoo3, 4x max for Voodoo4 and 1x for Voodoo5

2: Nope, all 3dfx AGP adaptors can do at least AGP 1x (66Mhz) which is double the PCI bus and that is that. The only improvements of the AGP over the PCI when it comes to 3dfx video cards are:
-Double bus bandwidth
-Dedicated bus, it does mean that no bandwidth is shared across other devices and it's all available to the VGA.

A Voodoo5 PCI should have exactly the same performances of the AGP one *if* you can run the card into a PCI-X slot, which is a PCI slot capable of 66MHz (PCI-X=AGP@1x).

So Voodoo5 PCI and AGP are basically the same thing. Point at issue is that as long as you can put the AGP one into the slot and get the card to work you'll run always the card at 66MHz bus clock. For the PCI version, in order to race against the AGP one, you have to choose the right slot, the one capable of 66MHz instead of classic 33MHz, which is the PCI-X slot as already stated.

In the end, if you don't notice any relevant difference between Voodoo5 AGP and PCI, even when the latter is using a PCI 33MHz slot only, is beacuse more likely the application doesn't require more bandwidth as much the 33MHz bus can offer.
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« Last Edit: 26.11.13 at 02:45:01 by goriath »  

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ultima
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Re: difference in performance for 5500PCI?
Reply #6 - 26.11.13 at 07:01:23
 
So in the end, if I don't notice any difference in performance, even @ 1600x1200x32, and FSAA @ 4x,  that means the card just can't produce enough data to saturate the pci bus, meaning the agp part is just in existence so you don't have to sacrifice a pci slot, and a marketing gimmick.

We'll see soon enough I guess, will be doing the testing this weekend.
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« Last Edit: 26.11.13 at 07:09:56 by ultima »  

3DFX Playrig:

Aerocool Strike-X Air
SuperMicro H8DAE
Dual Opteron 280 @ 2.4Ghz (4 cores)
4 x 1GB PC3200
3DFX Voodoo5 5500MAC PCI
WD 160GB ATA100/133
Diamond MonsterSound MX300
Windows2000 SP4
 
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Re: difference in performance for 5500PCI?
Reply #7 - 26.11.13 at 11:06:52
 
Note- you will find a lot of performance difference running to 66MHz instead of 33MHz when a SW an application needs bandwidth. For example run a V5-5500 PCI 33MHz and later 66MHz using 3DMark2001SE where T&L is emulated by CPU. Here you will note an important improvement. Though using Quake3 timedemo the difference will be minimum.

- Oscar.
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ultima
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Re: difference in performance for 5500PCI?
Reply #8 - 26.11.13 at 11:21:22
 
thanks for the tip, I will check that.

I have tested 3DMark2001SE before @ 66Mhz pci and 2.38Ghz, I got just over 3000 points, I wonder what 33Mhz pci will give.

I did some looking up, and bandwidth is as follows:

33Mhz 32bit PCI = 33.33 x 32 / 8 = 133MB/s
66Mhz 32bit PCI = 66.66 x 32 / 8 = 266MB/s
32Mhz 64bit PCI = 33.33 x 64 / 8 = 266MB/s
66Mhz 64bit PCI = 66.66 x 64 / 8 = 533MB/s

So the question is, where lies the sweet spot for the 5500 Smiley
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« Last Edit: 26.11.13 at 12:55:06 by ultima »  

3DFX Playrig:

Aerocool Strike-X Air
SuperMicro H8DAE
Dual Opteron 280 @ 2.4Ghz (4 cores)
4 x 1GB PC3200
3DFX Voodoo5 5500MAC PCI
WD 160GB ATA100/133
Diamond MonsterSound MX300
Windows2000 SP4
 
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goriath
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Re: difference in performance for 5500PCI?
Reply #9 - 26.11.13 at 13:45:22
 
Voodoo5 PCI is a 32bit only device, you won't have any benefit using it into a 64bit capable slot.
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ultima
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Re: difference in performance for 5500PCI?
Reply #10 - 26.11.13 at 14:26:21
 
goriath wrote on 26.11.13 at 13:45:22:
Voodoo5 PCI is a 32bit only device, you won't have any benefit using it into a 64bit capable slot.


nope, not from the 64bit part of it, just the 66Mhz part of it Smiley I know what my rig scores on the 64bit slot, will test what it does on the 33Mhz slot, see how much the performance drops.
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3DFX Playrig:

Aerocool Strike-X Air
SuperMicro H8DAE
Dual Opteron 280 @ 2.4Ghz (4 cores)
4 x 1GB PC3200
3DFX Voodoo5 5500MAC PCI
WD 160GB ATA100/133
Diamond MonsterSound MX300
Windows2000 SP4
 
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Re: difference in performance for 5500PCI?
Reply #11 - 26.11.13 at 15:33:16
 
What I meant to say was that your bandwidth is limited to 266MB/s MAX (66Mhz 32bit PCI = 66MHz x 32bit / 8), so is useless to consider 64bit in the math.
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ultima
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Re: difference in performance for 5500PCI?
Reply #12 - 26.11.13 at 16:06:21
 
that is correct, I just added it there to make it complete.

But the 5500 is actually capable of running 66Mhz PCI, else the card wouldn't score the same as the AGP part.
Or the other way around, there is absolutely no need for an agp part, aside from having a different connector, it is not needed for the speed it can provide.
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3DFX Playrig:

Aerocool Strike-X Air
SuperMicro H8DAE
Dual Opteron 280 @ 2.4Ghz (4 cores)
4 x 1GB PC3200
3DFX Voodoo5 5500MAC PCI
WD 160GB ATA100/133
Diamond MonsterSound MX300
Windows2000 SP4
 
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Re: difference in performance for 5500PCI?
Reply #13 - 26.11.13 at 21:47:32
 
ultima wrote on 25.11.13 at 19:40:48:
I assume that is correct, but since I can't find any conclusive data on the net, I am gonna test the difference.
You can find a lot of PCI vs AGP for the 5500, but nowhere it states what kinda pci slot is used.
Since those benchmark are made for the masses, I assume it is tested on a 32bit/33Mhz slot, mine are 64bit/66Mhz, so I wanna see what the difference is, within the same system.

In my benchmarks with a fast CPU (Pentium III 1400-S) I used a Voodoo 5 in a 33MHz PCI-slot and using lower resolutions the PCI-model is slower than the AGP version. With higher resolutions the differences between PCI and AGP get smaller eventually the difference is really small (for instance 0.30 FPS with Quake 3 at 1024x768 16-bit). With a slower CPU the difference between PCI and AGP is almost zero.
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ultima
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Re: difference in performance for 5500PCI?
Reply #14 - 27.11.13 at 08:42:16
 
Thandor wrote on 26.11.13 at 21:47:32:
ultima wrote on 25.11.13 at 19:40:48:
I assume that is correct, but since I can't find any conclusive data on the net, I am gonna test the difference.
You can find a lot of PCI vs AGP for the 5500, but nowhere it states what kinda pci slot is used.
Since those benchmark are made for the masses, I assume it is tested on a 32bit/33Mhz slot, mine are 64bit/66Mhz, so I wanna see what the difference is, within the same system.

In my benchmarks with a fast CPU (Pentium III 1400-S) I used a Voodoo 5 in a 33MHz PCI-slot and using lower resolutions the PCI-model is slower than the AGP version. With higher resolutions the differences between PCI and AGP get smaller eventually the difference is really small (for instance 0.30 FPS with Quake 3 at 1024x768 16-bit). With a slower CPU the difference between PCI and AGP is almost zero.


That seems kinda strange, I would expect the difference to be minimal in lower resolution, as the PCI bus wouldn't be hampering it yet then. I really need an AGP version to complete the testing, but for now 66Mhz vs 33Mhz will have to do.
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3DFX Playrig:

Aerocool Strike-X Air
SuperMicro H8DAE
Dual Opteron 280 @ 2.4Ghz (4 cores)
4 x 1GB PC3200
3DFX Voodoo5 5500MAC PCI
WD 160GB ATA100/133
Diamond MonsterSound MX300
Windows2000 SP4
 
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