Matthew Witheiler van AnandTech heeft eens aandacht besteed aan de budget videokaarten die momenteel op de markt zijn. In dit verhaal behandelt hij uitgebreid de specificaties van de 3dfx Voodoo4 4500, nVidia's GeForce2 MX en de ATi Radeon SDR. Daarnaast is het trio uiteraard gebenchmarked en zijn ze getest op Windows 2000 performance. Uit de conclusie wordt duidelijk dat de 3dfx Voodoo4 4500 vermeden moet worden; zijn performance ligt gewoon beduidend lager. De Radeon SDR en de GeForce2 MX zijn gelukkig meer aan elkaar gewaagd. Toch laat de ATi kaart het afweten op 16-bit en T&L performance, en de driver support is ook wat onder de maat. Tsja, dan blijft er dus maar eentje over :
So, with some consideration, we can pick a GeForce2 MX based card as the budget card of choice. Not only does the card shine in T&L intensive games, but it also has strong performance in all the benchmarks. In addition, many GeForce2 MX cards are currently on the market for around $100 or even a bit less. And for a bit more money you can get an MX based card with both a heatsink and a fan, making overclocking a cinch. Dual VGA TwinView ready GeForce2 MX based cards are still rather hard to find and may end up costing up to $150, but for many users in a business type environment it may be worth it.
It won't be long before the current generation of high performance video processors become the processor of choice for the gamer on a budget. With GeForce2 GTS prices falling nearly daily, it will not be long before the GeForce2 MX based cards are priced even lower. Do not expect, however, for the GeForce2 MX to remain the budget card of choice for too long. With in a few months we should see new product announcements from both NVIDIA as well as ATI. Without question, a modified version of these new processors will soon find their way into new budget video cards, making the cycle start all over once again.