NVIDIA GeForce4 - NV17 and NV25 Come to Life

Quake III Arena 1.30 demo four High Quality - 1024x768x32 NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600 NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400 NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500 ATI Radeon 8500 NVIDIA GeForce3 ATI Radeon 8500LE NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 460 NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200 NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 NVIDIA GeForce2 Ti 200 218.4 216 211.2 202.6 196.2 191.6 186.7 181.9 153.8 131.8 | 0 | 44 | 87 | 131 | 175 | 218 | 262

Starting out with a fairly basic game (by today's standards) at a fairly common resolution we see that there's relatively no performance benefit to be seen from the new GeForce4s. Luckily for NVIDIA, running Quake III Arena at 1024 x 768 wasn't the main goal of the NV25 and that you'll see going forward. The performance of all of these cards in this benchmark is beyond respectable, with "slowest" card coming in at above 130 fps.

The GeForce4 MX cards perform quite well in this test as they outperform not only the top of the line GeForce2 but also the GeForce3 Ti 200 in some cases. We also see that the Radeon 8500LE performs almost on-par with GeForce4 MX 460 yet it offers full DX8 pixel and vertex shader support at a very similar price point.

Quake III Arena High Quality - 1280x1024x32 NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600 NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400 NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500 ATI Radeon 8500 NVIDIA GeForce3 ATI Radeon 8500LE NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 460 NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200 NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 NVIDIA GeForce2 Ti 200 195.6 183.7 165.8 152 146.2 138.2 134.4 128.5 103.2 84.3 | 0 | 39 | 78 | 117 | 156 | 196 | 235

The situation changes a bit as we increase the resolution to 1280 x 1024, now the GeForce4 Ti 4400 is almost 11% faster than the GeForce3 Ti 500; the Ti 4600 being just shy of 18% faster than the Ti 500.

Quake III Arena High Quality - 1600x1200x32 NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600 NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400 NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500 ATI Radeon 8500 NVIDIA GeForce3 ATI Radeon 8500LE NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 460 NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200 NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 NVIDIA GeForce2 Ti 200 160.6 143.1 123.5 111.4 106.9 100.6 97.5 92.8 73.1 59.3 | 0 | 32 | 64 | 96 | 128 | 161 | 193

For our final test with Quake III Arena we have the classic 1600 x 1200 test. When the GeForce2 Ultra was released we were amazed at its ability to run Quake III at above 60 fps at 1600 x 1200, today we have a cad that is capable of running the game at that high of a resolution at more than 160 fps.

Here the GeForce4 can truly begin to distance itself from the GeForce3 Ti 500, but this is far from where the card shines.