Full Review of SUMA’s GeForce2 GTS 64MB SE — THG.RU

Introduction

Note: Please be aware that this review was completed a few days before the release of NVIDIA’s new Detonator 3 drivers and before the release of GeForce2 Ultra!

Editor in Chief, Thomas Pabst

NVIDIA fans may have been questioning the ability of the GeForce2 chipset (see Tom’s Take On NVIDIA’s New GeForce2 GTS) since the release of ATi’s 64MB Radeon a few weeks ago. ATi’s stab at NVIDIA with this new product seemed very painful until we did a true comparison using the 64MB version of the GeForce2 (GF2) at which point the cards both seem to have some advantages.

Picking a true performance winner between the two is a debatable subject but going strictly by test scores, the GF2 64MB edges out the 64MB Radeon. One of the biggest issues found and explored (see The Fastest GeForce2 GTS Card — Gainward’s CARDEXpert GeForce2 GTS/400) with the GF2 was its obvious issue with memory limiting performance. The Radeon suffers less in this area with its Hyper Z technology (see ATi’s New Radeon — Smart Technology Meets Brute Force for more detail).

While that high-speed memory provided tremendous performance improvements, increased core speeds did nearly nothing. Gainward’s failure to deliver an actual product with 5ns memory left the field open and Supermicro Systems (SUMA) has picked up the ball and put together a 5.5ns, memory-equipped GF2 product. With SUMA’s Platinum GF2 GTS 64MB SE in my possession, I’ve decided to put the board through our rigorous testing and give you the scoop on this promising newcomer.

The Company

SUMA is a Korean company that specializes in making multimedia products from video cards (producing boards based on early 3dfx chipsets) to MP3 players. You won’t recognize its name since it’s mostly done contract work for the companies who actually sold the product to the retail channel around the world. Some of the companies it’s done work for are: 3dfx, AOpen, NVIDIA, and Voyetra. Apparently it’s now selling products using its own name and when it comes to the US market, video is the main focus (in Korea much more is offered). Being that this is the first time we’ve reviewed its product, I can’t really comment on the past quality of its products but I do know that it’s been in business a long time and it has grown substantially.

The Package

I was given a near shipping release package of the GF2 64MB GTS SE that will only vary slightly from what you’ll see on store shelves. I was shipped a driver CD, early prototype board (released version will have a black PCB), and instructions. The final package will also include a DVD software player (WinDVD 2000). There isn’t much to the package and that’s the way most high-end gamers like it. Plain and simple as the performance is all you care about.

The Board

The final release board (aside from the PCB color) should remain exactly the same as the one pictured above. SUMA went with high-speed 5.5ns memory, a DVI connector (more on this later), video-out, and a nice cooling solution. This card compares with the best we’ve seen so far but surpasses them with the addition of the 5.5ns memory. The clock speed of this product right out of the box is 200MHz core and 400MHz memory. The memory speed alone should provide for some improvements in performance over the competition. One last feature to note is that the board is capable of being used in an AGP Pro slot (it has the extra slot piece). Most users that don’t happen to own one of the recent Asus motherboards don’t have an AGP Pro capable motherboard but don’t worry, the board worked just fine in my BX platform without AGP Pro. Overall the board looks well constructed and I saw nothing but quality components used throughout.

Software and Driver Interface

There isn’t much to speak of here as the software consists of NVIDIA reference drivers and the software DVD player. This would normally be fine with me; however, there is one huge problem. The reference drivers with ‘cool bits’ enabled cannot control the, already fast, hardware settings. My next default software to try was Powerstrip but still there was no luck with getting the higher settings to work reliably. My final answer came late last night but it cannot be discussed until after Monday some time so keep your eyes open. We’ll try to squeeze in an update on this boards ability to overclock at that point in time.

The Competition

We’ve reviewed several of the available GF2 solutions. You can find the links to the reviews below.

• NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS Battle Royal
• Asus AGP-V7700 Pure Review
• Blue Wonder? The Guillemot/Hercules 3D Prophet II GTS
• The Fastest GeForce2 GTS Card — Gainward’s CARDEXpert GeForce2 GTS/400
• Battle of the Titans 2: Creative Labs’s Annihilator 2 vs. Absolute Multimedia’s Outrageous GeForce2 GTS
• Video Excursion with the Asus V7700 Deluxe

Most of the reviewed GF2 hardware was of the 32MB flavor and configured for the standard reference speed settings of 200MHz core and 333MHz memory. The only cards that were significantly faster due to default hardware settings were the Guillemot and CARDExpert solutions. The Guillemot idea was seemingly a flop because it ended up having users re-flash their video BIOS that put their hardware back to the default recommended settings for reliability reasons. Gainward’s CARDExpert on the other hand never came out with their 5ns flavored GF2 product and ended up shipping the standard 6ns setup. As far as hardware goes, there is no GF2-equivalent product available to compare to the SUMA offering to.

I put together an updated specification and pricing table for you to quickly reference. Prices may vary in your area but these are accurate at the date of the article’s release. Price was based on the average of the two to three lowest prices found.

Prices are fairly similar but there are obvious differences when you compare the 32MB and 64MB adapters.

Although not all the products are clocked as fast as the SUMA, they are selling for a bit cheaper.

Test Setup

Test Notes

Resolutions below 1024×768 resolution were dropped because the data generated was only offering good feedback for platform performance. With high-end solutions such as these, the true differences are seen at the mid to upper resolutions (1024-1600).

In all tests, the higher the score, the better the average frame rate.

Overclocking benchmarks will be done at a later stage due to software configuration limitations at this point in time.

Performance Expectations

With the default memory clock being 66MHz faster than the rest of the pack, I expect the SUMA solution to dominate all our tests. We’ve proven before that the greatest GF2 weakness is limited memory performance so we should see a clear victory across the board.

Test Results — Quake 3 Arena Demo001

The SUMA GF2 takes charge early in the Quake 3 testing. Even without 32-bit color, you can see a significant increase in performance.

With the high detail and color settings in Quake 2 toggle on, we still see the SUMA card keep a nice lead. The Radeon keeps the closest to it but never manages to pass it in any resolution.

Test Results — Expendable Demo

In 16-bit color, the SUMA board barely loses any performance across the resolution changes.

The SUMA powerhouse keeps everyone in check until the highest setting of Expendable where the Radeon pulls ahead slightly.

Test Results — MDK2 Demo

The SUMA GF2 is still jogging away from the rest of the pack.

The Radeon is a close second through most of the tests until the 1600×1200 resolution where it pulls every so slightly ahead.

Test Results — Evolva Rolling Demo

There isn’t much changing in 16-bit testing as the SUMA solution continues to keep a nice lead over everyone.

With 32-bit color on, the SUMA loses a bit of ground but still maintains a respectable lead throughout the resolutions.

Test Results — Evolva Rolling Demo Bump Mapped

Although bump mapping is turned on, the Radeon still doesn’t do too well in 16-bit color. The Special Edition SUMA board is still number one.

Our final test is actually one of our most difficult as 32-bit color, bump mapping and T&L factors are all involved. I figured the SUMA card would be given a better challenge by the Radeon but it actually wasn’t that close at all.

Performance Conclusion

Until the new GeForce2 Ultra starts shipping, the SUMA GF2 64MB GTS SE is the fastest 3D solution available. It was rarely beat during our testing and when it did lose, it was by very little. Thanks to the ultra-fast memory, SUMA has no problems from any of the other competitors. Without the special memory, however, this board would be just as fast as the others.

Conclusion

SUMA is providing what most performance guru’s want: a basic package with a very fast graphics board. You get almost everything you need to have a seriously fast GF2 setup for a mere $300. The biggest quirk with this board is that it didn’t come with a good overclocking utility right out of the box. However, even if you don’t overclock it now, the stable 400MHz memory setting is a very attractive thing.

Overall I must say that the Special Edition SUMA GF2 has the potential to be the best 3D performing GF2 offering out there. I say potential because we’ve already seen someone falter at shipping a fast memory-configured GF2 board before and until this board hits the streets, it just might end up being vaporware. Another fact that could possibly keep this GTS down is availability. SUMA doesn’t have a big presence here in the US retail chain but with a product like this in the pipes, that might change very fast.

There will be an urgent update using the new Detonator 3 drivers and including scores of the just-released GeForce2 Ultra. It seems obvious however that if SUMA should indeed start shipping this product, it will fit the gap between the normal GeForce2 GTS cards and GeForce2 Ultra. $300 for this board sounds a lot more attractive than the $499 for the upcoming GeForce2 Ultra solutions from Creative Labs, Elsa and Guillemot.