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home graphics version thinkquest disclaimer glossary links site map credits help |
price vs performance
We first tested the file transfer rates of each computer's hard drive and CD-ROM drive.
To test the hard drives, we measured the amount of time it took to make a copy of a large file (175 megabytes) on the same hard drive as the original.
To test the CD-ROM drives, we measured the amount of time it took to copy of another large file (107 megabytes) from a CD to the hard drive.
POV-Ray is a free 3d scene rendering program that can be found at http://www.povray.org.
3d rendering is very CPU intensive, making it a good tool to use in benchmark tests.
We recorded the amount of time each computer took to render the sample scene "torus1.pov" (included with the program) in both 320x240 and 640x480 resolution.
No set of benchmarks would be complete without the ever-popular Quake 2 "timedemo".
Quake 2 is a 3d game played from a first-person perspective that requires lots of processing power to run smoothly.
For this benchmark, we ran a timed demonstration ("timedemo") on each computer at two different resolutions and using both software rendering (completely done by the CPU) and OpenGL (mostly done by the video card) when possible.
At the end of each demo we recorded the average number of frames per second at which the game was running.
Frames per second is a measurement of how many times the player's point of view can be redrawn every second.
We ran each test twice and averaged the results.
Results from the file transfer tests were rather surprising; we had expected the CD-ROM transfer speed to be lower than the hard drive speed, but this was only the case with the $600 computer.
Nevertheless, the performance of each computer in this test seemed fitting for its components.
The drives in the $2400 computer were able to attain such high transfer rates because of the extremely high bandwidth of the SCSI interface.
However, both the hard drive ($400) and the CD-ROM drive ($150) were relatively expensive compared to the IDE units found in the other two computers.
The second set of tests gave a good estimate of the differences in processing power between the three machines.
The time differences between renderings loosely matched the differences in clock speeds between CPUs; the 400 mhz processor rendered scenes roughly twice as fast as the 200 mhz model, while the 300 mhz CPU was in between.
Comparatively, the prices of these processors were less than proportional.
The AMD 300 mhz unit was bought for less than a quarter of the cost of the Intel 400 mhz model, giving it a more favorable ratio of price to performance.
The Quake 2 benchmarks revealed just how much of a performance increase a good 3d accelerator can offer.
The data from the software trials clearly shows how much slower the AMD K6-2 performed in comparison with the Intel Pentium II.
However, when the 3D Blaster II (based on the Voodoo2 chipset) was utilized in OpenGL mode, it produced framerates that were much greater, even at 800x600 resolution.
The $2400 computer was also able to use OpenGL, at least in 640x480 mode.
However, its first generation Voodoo Rush-based card produced less than satisfactory results.
A 3d accelerator can dramatically improve game performance, but at a high price.
At $170, the 3D Blaster was the most expensive part of the $1200 computer.
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