The Test/Bench Setup -

A Key part of any review is the tests or evaluation done on the product you are reviewing.   This review is almost nothing but that. Over almost a 20 hour period The GF3 and GF2U were subjected to a controlled set of "bulk" benchmarks under certain Drivers, certain OS's, Certain Apps,  all repeated over and over in different combinations.  This resulted in an Excel spread sheet  with almost 50 Benchmark score results  on it.   To give YOU the reader the opportunity to get the info you need, I will have the spread sheet I used to record all the data available for download so you can see the raw data your self.

Here is a matrix of the tests that will be run for performance marks

Reasons for the benchmark matrix:

Why Win 98SE and not Win ME? - Windows ME is unstable and unpredictable. Stability is a virtue in bench testing equiptment.  I hate headaches and that's all ME is.

Why use 3Dmark 2000? - Simple, To give a legacy app view on what the GF3s speed will be on something that was NOT specially enhanced for it. Since most all games we all play are NOT GF3 enhanced yet.

Why GLMark?  - OpenGL is in many ways MORE important then D3D as in many cases its faster and better in features then D3D is. It will give an idea of the quality of the OpenGL API in the specific OS's.

There will be more misc tests, but for "Bulk" tests those are the main apps as they cover all the major API's being used. ( Legacy, Dx8, OpenGL )

Det's 11.01 and 12.00 are the only drivers available to be used for review on the GF3 so I am using them on the GF2 Ultra also.

Yep thats the Pro/Mini, trucking along.  Its very unique and VERY robust cooling system is a work of art, and is one of the most compact and well designed systems around. It makes a perfect bench test machine as its stable and fast. As soon as I get some free time I am going to Vmod the board and take the chip in excess of 1.6Ghz but for this test its at 1507Mhz.   I am using the WW bios for the abit board as I found them to be more stable then the WZ BIOS. To avoid the DMA issue with the 686B south bridge and the SB Live Sound Card, I have disabled DMA mode on the DVDROM.

Drivers were the latest 4.29 4 in 1 drivers with the AGP 4x ( Turbo) installed.