Gaming Benchmarks - Half-Life 2
We come to the last of our gaming benchmarks, and again, here you can see the settings we tested.
The Half-life 2 engine is quite a bit more forgiving towards the IGPs. You're not going to get both high-quality and high resolutions out of them, but they do a bit better than in the other games. As with Far Cry, we probably could have had 1024x768 to be playable with the IGPs by dropping texture quality to low.
Half-Life 2 depends more on pixel shader performance than it does on GPU bandwidth, so the difference between high quality and low quality settings isn't very pronounced in many of the tests. For the integrated solutions, the 6150 does come out ahead by a decent margin in medium-quality mode, showing the power of its 475 MHz clock speed.
With the discrete graphics cards, notice how there's no difference in performance between the high-quality scores with and without antialiasing - all of the cards are either GPU core limited, or CPU limited. There is a sizable difference when we look at the low-quality scores, but there's really no point in running these cards at the lower quality settings.
We come to the last of our gaming benchmarks, and again, here you can see the settings we tested.
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| Click on images to enlarge. | |
The Half-life 2 engine is quite a bit more forgiving towards the IGPs. You're not going to get both high-quality and high resolutions out of them, but they do a bit better than in the other games. As with Far Cry, we probably could have had 1024x768 to be playable with the IGPs by dropping texture quality to low.
Half-Life 2 depends more on pixel shader performance than it does on GPU bandwidth, so the difference between high quality and low quality settings isn't very pronounced in many of the tests. For the integrated solutions, the 6150 does come out ahead by a decent margin in medium-quality mode, showing the power of its 475 MHz clock speed.
With the discrete graphics cards, notice how there's no difference in performance between the high-quality scores with and without antialiasing - all of the cards are either GPU core limited, or CPU limited. There is a sizable difference when we look at the low-quality scores, but there's really no point in running these cards at the lower quality settings.
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ozgure - Thursday, February 2, 2006 - link
You have said "Full 5.1 audio is supported with speakers". I couldn't manage to get a sound from line-in port. Are you really sure?? Can you share me howto?bzsetshot - Thursday, December 22, 2005 - link
I standarized my company to this machine almost as soon as it came out and I have not regreted this decision for one second. Ultra stable, ultra flexible and perfect size. It even has integrated RAID!! I highly recommend this machine.trexpesto - Thursday, December 15, 2005 - link
That is so wrong. Or very funny. Can't tell if you are serious == great writing.
:D
JarredWalton - Friday, December 16, 2005 - link
Oh, I'm serious about that. Vista will have a bunch of graphical effects that will actually leverage the power of the GPU. You should be able to drop back to a Windows XP style interface, and technically the DX9 integrated graphics should be able to handle the new UI effects... but then, technically the DX9 IGPs can run all the latest games at reasonable rates. :)mino - Saturday, December 17, 2005 - link
Have you tested it or is it just a guess? Actually many would like to know how high performance is necessary to achieve acceptable performance of aero-glass. Nice theme for a short folow-up article IMHO.JarredWalton - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link
Just a guess, hence the "may" part. What I'm basically saying is worry about Vista when Vista is actually available. If it turns out that the graphical effects don't work well with an IGP, then you can upgrade.Ditiris - Friday, December 16, 2005 - link
I believe the integrated GPU, the X200, supports the 3d Aero Glass theme in Avalon/WPF. So, there shouldn't be any need to upgrade.I don't think this is much of an issue for business users, but home users considering the model might want the eye candy.
Foxbat121 - Thursday, December 15, 2005 - link
I bought a HP a1250n from CC recently. It comes with x2 3800+, 1GB memory, 250GB HDD, 1 16x LightScribe DL DVD Burner and 1 DVD-ROM Drive, meida card reader, 300W PSU, MCE 2005 OS. All for just $799 AR. Upgraded to a 6600GT and plays BF2 and HL2 just fine. I configured a DIY system on NewEgg, and it is around $1,000. When compare OEM system to DIY, please also take into account of OS cost (for your DIY). I know it's not much for OEM, but it will cost you $100+ for MCE or XP Pro legally.Lifted - Thursday, December 15, 2005 - link
Bought one of these a while back to have a user test out and it's working out great. I am ordering another 10 next week, from CDW since they have them in stock, for $850 or so in a bundle with an HP 19" monitor. $599 for the system and $250 for monitor is a great deal, especially considering they both have standard 3 year next day on site support. 4 and 5 year warranties are also available for not too much more.Lifted - Thursday, December 15, 2005 - link
Oh, one odd thing though. I comes with two video ports but the DVI is digital only, meaning no DVI - VGA adapter. So if you want to use two montiors, which IS supported by the on board ATI chip, you have to use one analog monitor and one digital monitor, or buy two analog/digital monitors which cost more. I think they did this to sell the optional PCIe cards. The system is cheap enough though so I'm happy with it.