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Comparing the Voodoo5 5500 AGP with the Voodoo5 5500 PCI (Read 510 times)
C.Zoui
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Comparing the Voodoo5 5500 AGP with the Voodoo5 5500 PCI
05.02.09 at 05:23:26
 
I've seen the benchmarks, but I've also seen a discrepancy between the benchmarks of sites that I regularly use.  Normally I wouldn't question the performance between AGP and PCI versions of the same part, but the VSA-100 chips of the Voodoo5 do not support AGP texturing, one of the main speed advantages of the AGP bus.

Anandtech shows the cards performing nearly identically, with the PCI slower by a couple frames, at most, in only instance.
Firingsquad, on the other hand, shows the PCI lagging behind the AGP by over fifteen percent in many instances.

They both used 98SE and the same drivers, final official drivers v1.01.00.  Anandtech used an Athlon 750, 128MB PC133 SDRAM, and a 20GB 7200 RPM HDD; Firingsquad used a PIII 750E, 128MB PC100 SDRAM, and a 20GB 7200 RPM HDD.  These are fairly comparable systems.  Both included the same demo of Q3: Arena in their benchmarks using the same resolutions (although I'm unsure what quality the Anandtech benchmarks used).

I can only think of one thing that might explain the discrepancy between benchmarking efforts.  Anandtech points out that if a previous 3dfx card in your system was not uninstalled properly (with the previous 3D adapter left behind, incorrectly identifying your new Voodoo5 5500 PCI as "3dfx Voodoo Series"), your performance can be significantly reduced.  Perhaps Firingsquad did not uninstall their previous 3dfx cards properly.

Would anyone be interested in benchmarking both the PCI and AGP versions of the Voodoo5 5500 on the same hardware?
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« Last Edit: 05.02.09 at 05:26:23 by C.Zoui »  
 
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Narmounet
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Re: Comparing the Voodoo5 5500 AGP with the Voodoo5 5500 PCI
Reply #1 - 05.02.09 at 09:16:15
 
Hi !

I know a french test who use this configuration to compare the PCI and AGP version :

Asus A7V
Athlon 750
128 Mo SDRAM PC133
IBM 30Go 7200tr/min
Windows 98 SE
The drivers are 1.01.01 :

http://revioo.com/articles/a709_3.html
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Re: Comparing the Voodoo5 5500 AGP with the Voodoo5 5500 PCI
Reply #2 - 05.02.09 at 11:57:36
 
C.Zoui wrote on 05.02.09 at 05:23:26:
I've seen the benchmarks, but I've also seen a discrepancy between the benchmarks of sites that I regularly use.  Normally I wouldn't question the performance between AGP and PCI versions of the same part, but the VSA-100 chips of the Voodoo5 do not support AGP texturing, one of the main speed advantages of the AGP bus.


The AGP bus does run at 66 mhz vs the PCI bus 33 mhz.

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Re: Comparing the Voodoo5 5500 AGP with the Voodoo5 5500 PCI
Reply #3 - 05.02.09 at 14:42:50
 
I have tested the Voodoo5 5500 PCI and AGP as well. I used an Intel Pentium III-S 1400MHz 'Tualatin', i815 chipset with 133MHz SDR-SDRAM. Windows '98 SE as platform and the latest 3dfx drivers (V1.04.01b).

The Voodoo5 5500 AGP is somewhat faster. In a system with a slow CPU (Pentium II 450) the difference is smaller. Anyhow, see thandor.net - Voodoo 5 5500 for the benchmarks.
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C.Zoui
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Re: Comparing the Voodoo5 5500 AGP with the Voodoo5 5500 PCI
Reply #4 - 05.02.09 at 23:28:49
 
Narmounet wrote on 05.02.09 at 09:16:15:
Hi !

I know a french test who use this configuration to compare the PCI and AGP version :

Asus A7V
Athlon 750
128 Mo SDRAM PC133
IBM 30Go 7200tr/min
Windows 98 SE
The drivers are 1.01.01 :

http://revioo.com/articles/a709_3.html


Thanks.  These results, achieved using similar hardware and drivers to the first ones I listed, are consistent with Anandtech's results showing virtually-identical PCI and AGP performance.


Thandor wrote on 05.02.09 at 14:42:50:
I have tested the Voodoo5 5500 PCI and AGP as well. I used an Intel Pentium III-S 1400MHz 'Tualatin', i815 chipset with 133MHz SDR-SDRAM. Windows '98 SE as platform and the latest 3dfx drivers (V1.04.01b).

The Voodoo5 5500 AGP is somewhat faster. In a system with a slow CPU (Pentium II 450) the difference is smaller. Anyhow, see thandor.net - Voodoo 5 5500 for the benchmarks.


Thanks!  With different drivers and faster hardware, I'd still have to say that your results are more consistent with Anandtech's than Firingsquad's.

Btw, the catalog of cards you've benchmarked is impressive.  I really appreciate how you've included Voodoo2 12MB SLI benchmarks too.  I've always been curious how they would compare to a Voodoo5 5500.  The layout of your site is also gorgeous.


gdonovan wrote on 05.02.09 at 11:57:36:
The AGP bus does run at 66 mhz vs the PCI bus 33 mhz.


True.  But I don't see anything in any real game benchmarks that shows the PCI bus running into a 133MB/s 'wall' of saturation with the PCI Voodoo5 5500.
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« Last Edit: 05.02.09 at 23:32:25 by C.Zoui »  
 
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Re: Comparing the Voodoo5 5500 AGP with the Voodoo5 5500 PCI
Reply #5 - 06.02.09 at 21:35:17
 
C.Zoui wrote on 05.02.09 at 23:28:49:
[quote author=4D42514E4C564D4657230 link=1233804206/0#1 date=1233821775]Thanks!  With different drivers and faster hardware, I'd still have to say that your results are more consistent with Anandtech's than Firingsquad's.

Btw, the catalog of cards you've benchmarked is impressive.  I really appreciate how you've included Voodoo2 12MB SLI benchmarks too.  I've always been curious how they would compare to a Voodoo5 5500.  The layout of your site is also gorgeous.
Thanks Smiley.

My goal is to list every graphics card and CPU I have including benchmarks for the interesting ones. This will include the whole line-up of retail 3dfx cards. The Voodoo II SLI for the P3 1400 will be added a.s.a.p. Currently I'm arranging the correct hardware to benchmark the Voodoo Rush well. In the meantime I will add competing cards like the PowerVR, TNT, GeForce's, Radeon's and XGI cards.

For the lower end cards I will probably add up benchmarks like Turok or Quake II as those games have benchmark functionality and they run on the PowerVR. Higher-end cards will stick to more advanced benchmarks like 3DMark2001's Nature Demo (which nearly uses CPU and is perfect for GPU) and skip the 3DMark2000 benchmark.

[offtopic]The layout of the site took me a while to fix. I'm quite worse at designing but this one turned out pretty well. It will look at it's best on Firefox (untill CSS3 will be out) and my goal was to keep it lightweight because the webserver runs at home and uses a slow ADSL connection Wink.[/offtopic]

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Re: Comparing the Voodoo5 5500 AGP with the Voodoo5 5500 PCI
Reply #6 - 09.02.09 at 16:40:49
 
@Thandor

Really nice site Smiley

But one more thing would also be interesting - try running V5 5500 PCI in a nice, (almost) brand new C2D or quad core overclocked CPU and add it on top of the pile, just to see how much juice can we really squeeze out of V5. It would also be interesting how many points would it bring in 3d mark 2001SE, with software pixel shading (swiftshader).

Does a quad core CPU allows V5 to run nature demo in a playable FPS?
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Re: Comparing the Voodoo5 5500 AGP with the Voodoo5 5500 PCI
Reply #7 - 09.02.09 at 20:34:50
 
elfuego wrote on 09.02.09 at 16:40:49:
... But one more thing would also be interesting - try running V5 5500 PCI in a nice, (almost) brand new C2D or quad core overclocked CPU and add it on top of the pile, just to see how much juice can we really squeeze out of V5. It would also be interesting how many points would it bring in 3d mark 2001SE, with software pixel shading (swiftshader). ...


It's worth a shot.

I'm more interested in Win98 performance, though, because that's what most games of the glide era used.  I don't think any of these latest rigs have drivers for Win98. :p

I'll be building a system that is faster than the fastest Voodoo5 5500 AGP system (KT333A chipset) yet still has Win98 drivers.  I'll be putting a Voodoo 5 5500 PCI in it in part to answer the question of whether the PCI Voodoo5 5500 can be helped still more by a faster system than I've seen benchmarked (in Win98).
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« Last Edit: 09.02.09 at 20:37:03 by C.Zoui »  
 
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Re: Comparing the Voodoo5 5500 AGP with the Voodoo5 5500 PCI
Reply #8 - 10.02.09 at 00:04:43
 
I'm not into the latest unofficial  3dfx drivers. Last time I ran AmigaMerlin (and several others) I noticed a huge performance drop on my Athlon 700. Not to mention lower game compatibility as SoF didn't run correctly. Although the newer drivers need a faster PC I'm not sure how much the graphics card renders. I don't like putting benchmarks online in which the CPU is doing the work instead of the GPU (if this would be the case of course).

When I have time I'll give the Voodoo5 5500 a go in a faster system with the 3dfx drivers and the unofficial drivers. Let's see what it would be like and how the drivers respond. I can test the Voodoo5 5500AGP in a Core 2 Quad Q6600. The PCI would be doable in a Q6600 @ 3,2GHz or higher. Drivers for '98 might be difficult, indeed.
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« Last Edit: 10.02.09 at 00:05:39 by Thandor »  
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Re: Comparing the Voodoo5 5500 AGP with the Voodoo5 5500 PCI
Reply #9 - 12.02.09 at 02:44:49
 
Thandor wrote on 10.02.09 at 00:04:43:
I don't like putting benchmarks online in which the CPU is doing the work instead of the GPU (if this would be the case of course).

Well think about it this way: today is 2009, so we should take all factors in consideration when testing cards Wink

Anyway, the one thing I really hate is the fact that AMD K6 totally sucked when compared to P2. I noticed that you get exactly the same results in 3Dmark 2000 on V5 5500 on P2@450Mhz as I do with K6-3@600Mhz - cca 1500 marks.

On default (@400Mhz) I have barely over 1000 marks.

The thing that says how much V5 was CPU hungry lies in the fact that I get 1500 marks both with LOD -8 and FSAA x2 as well as with LOD +8 and fastest FSAA. Only if I turn on FSAA x4 I get a slight score penalty at about 1350 marks.

So... please get quad core cpu and rock it Wink
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Re: Comparing the Voodoo5 5500 AGP with the Voodoo5 5500 PCI
Reply #10 - 12.02.09 at 12:32:04
 
if i can find a good Mainboard i test all the Voodoo5 cards

Voodoo5 AGP @ AGP
Voodoo5 AGP @ PCI
Voodoo5 AGP @ PCI66
Voodoo5 PCI @ PCI
Voodoo5 PCI @ PCI66
and if the Mainboard can run the 6k.....

only problem is to find a Mainboard with 3,3Vagp and a PCI66 Slot
the only one PCI66 Mainboard i have at the moment is the baord from the Mercury and AAlchemy systems but on 1GHz the CPU limiteds too much
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Re: Comparing the Voodoo5 5500 AGP with the Voodoo5 5500 PCI
Reply #11 - 15.02.09 at 11:04:46
 
What we need is a simple V5 5500 PCI tested on quad core CPU. If I had a V5 5500 PCI I would have already tested it - but I dont. My best V5 rig is on a T-bred @ 2GHz with Abit KT7-A V1.3. Not that fast as you can see.  Undecided I don't even have a DDR rig let alone DDR2 or DDR3/4 Wink
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Re: Comparing the Voodoo5 5500 AGP with the Voodoo5 5500 PCI
Reply #12 - 15.02.09 at 20:02:26
 
elfuego wrote on 15.02.09 at 11:04:46:
What we need is a simple V5 5500 PCI tested on quad core CPU. If I had a V5 5500 PCI I would have already tested it - but I dont. My best V5 rig is on a T-bred @ 2GHz with Abit KT7-A V1.3. Not that fast as you can see.  Undecided I don't even have a DDR rig let alone DDR2 or DDR3/4 Wink
As we speak I'm installing Windows on my ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA system. This motherboard will fit a 5500PCI and should be able to run a Q6600 as well.

I'm installing both Windows 2000 and XP. Have to set it up, take images of the partitions, find time, and stuff. But one day or another I can test it Smiley.
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Re: Comparing the Voodoo5 5500 AGP with the Voodoo5 5500 PCI
Reply #13 - 16.02.09 at 17:19:55
 
exxe wrote on 12.02.09 at 12:32:04:
if i can find a good Mainboard i test all the Voodoo5 cards

Voodoo5 AGP @ AGP
Voodoo5 AGP @ PCI
Voodoo5 AGP @ PCI66
Voodoo5 PCI @ PCI
Voodoo5 PCI @ PCI66
and if the Mainboard can run the 6k.....

only problem is to find a Mainboard with 3,3Vagp and a PCI66 Slot
the only one PCI66 Mainboard i have at the moment is the baord from the Mercury and AAlchemy systems but on 1GHz the CPU limiteds too much

Well you could go for Dual Athlon MP board like the Tyan S2466 that has PCI-X 66mhz 64bit slots and is AGP 3.3v compatible.
I did quick test on one such system and even with PCI66mhz slot the V5 pci card gets a small performance hit compared to the AGP V5. Even more so in the PCI33.
Cheers
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Re: Comparing the Voodoo5 5500 AGP with the Voodoo5 5500 PCI
Reply #14 - 23.02.09 at 11:24:15
 
Thandor wrote on 15.02.09 at 20:02:26:
elfuego wrote on 15.02.09 at 11:04:46:
What we need is a simple V5 5500 PCI tested on quad core CPU. If I had a V5 5500 PCI I would have already tested it - but I dont. My best V5 rig is on a T-bred @ 2GHz with Abit KT7-A V1.3. Not that fast as you can see.  Undecided I don't even have a DDR rig let alone DDR2 or DDR3/4 Wink
As we speak I'm installing Windows on my ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA system. This motherboard will fit a 5500PCI and should be able to run a Q6600 as well.

I'm installing both Windows 2000 and XP. Have to set it up, take images of the partitions, find time, and stuff. But one day or another I can test it Smiley.

And now it's going to take a little longer because my motherboard died  Roll Eyes.
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