AMD RS690 CHIPSET REVIEW X1250 PERFORMANCE VS NVIDIA GEFORCE 6150
Posted:2007-03-07 By chipset review Number of View:95621
AMD RS690 CHIPSET REVIEW X1250 PERFORMANCE VS NVIDIA GEFORCE 6150 By :chipset review Posted:2007-03-07 xtreview is your : Video card - cpu - memory - Hard drive - power supply unit source Since the purchase of ATI by AMD, the chipset activity of Canadian company was null . .The chipset RS690 which interests us today is thus the result of long work with integrated graphic solution since ATI (when it was a single company) planned the release of this chipset already in 2006. This will allow AMD to gain the heart of PC multimedia  a field where INTEL largely remains in advances with its Centrino platform. Delayed many time, the RS690 is finally released. To affirm its multi-media capability this chipset support the graphic interface Aero Windows Vista. AMD RS690: two version ! AMD has two RS690  versions. The first, will occupy the large part of this review, this is RS690G with Radeon X1250. It benefits from all possible and conceivable refinements with in particular HDMI and DVI. The second has similar name RS690V with Radeon X1200. More modest, is the second alternative of RS690 witch is deprived from DVI and HDMI. AMD RS690G:  traditional architecture RS690G, has architecture with doubles chip : northbridge and southbridge. Let us recall that the presence of memory controller in processors Athlon 64 allow for example NVIDIA to propose chipsets with single chip. But let us return to the northbridge in RS690G which, does not integrate a controller controller but benefits of course from graphic core . made in 80nm by UMC, the northbridge is traditional, it has HyperTransport for communication with processor as well as controller PCI-Express . This last can manage 24 lines, of which 16 are reserved for an optional graphics card and 4 for connectors PCI-Express 1x . And here remain four lines PCI-Express available which are used by interconnection ADLINK between northbridge and its southbridge. Chipset RS690G seen by Windows XP and CPU-Z The southbridge is also traditional,  equipping chipset RS690V or RS690G is SB600 developed by ATI. It integrates of course a controller USB 2.0 with the possibility of managing ten ports as well as controller PCI standard 2.3. This last can manage a total of six ports whereas AMD proposes to us a controller Serial-ATA 3 GB/S NCQ compatible . The RAID function has some modes : RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10 and RAID 5. Small disappointment on the other hand,  SB600 manages only four connectors Serial-ATA . From other side , AMD offers an AHCI. This southbridge has also one controller IDE  133. Finally we note that contrary to nForce, southbridge AMD SB600  does not integrate any network controller . Diagram of the interconnections of the RS690G A word to finish on the driver whose installation is a formality. It should be noted that only SMBus pilot is necessary to correct operation in Windows XP, AMD have the good idea to not  provide any driver IDE or SATA to replace Microsoft one witch are installed by default . The SMBus driver is automatically installed by graphic driver Catalyst delivered with the motherboards RS690G . AMD RS690G: Radeon X1250 Details … ATI/AMD indeed recycles with RS690G the architecture of its Radeon X700, a graphics chip medium range witch was released in September 2004 and at in this time it was known under code name RV410. Technically, the graphic circuit Radeon X1250 is provided with four pixels pipelines and four textures units . Like the majority of integrated graphic circuits, it is deprived of vertexes units  , this task falling on processor. Working at 400 MHz, Radeon X1250 is limited to support of DirectX 9.0b, Shader Model 3.0 introduced by DirectX 9.0c being absent here . However, this limitation does not have anything dramatic if GeForce 6100/6150 competitors from NVIDIA has the model Shaders 3.0, their performances are in any event too weak to hope to make this function profitable. And in spite of this limitation, AMD remains  able to propose the graphic interface Aero Windows Vista. Of course, the last Splinter Cell: Double Agent will not work on Radeon X1250 but who can play such game in integrated chipset… Side video , Radeon X1250 can get up to 256 Mb video memory from the system. Radeon X1250  Catalyst 7.2 Presented like Radeon X700, the RS690G is not a simple copy. There are some differences on the level of graphic capacities in these chips. Most significant comes the fact that Radeon X1250 benefits from engine AVIVO, a supposed engine to improve video quality by executing certain tasks like  3:2 Pull down or by proposing 10 bits . AVIVO also contains a supposed acceleration to the main frame at time of decoding certain video  (MPEG 2, H.264, etc). But here format VC-1  is not supported and considering the modest performances of RS690G, we will not  count on acceleration of video high-definition in 1080p. ..... Avivo seen by PowerDVD 7.3 The first chipset with graphic solution, RS690G benefits from native DVI and  HDMI ! AMD supports here HDMI version 1.3 and HDCP in version 1.1. Combined with Realtek driver, the chipset also offers audio out in  HDMI. we note that ATI offers two true independent outpu (analogue+numeric or numeric+numeric), which allow  to benefit from clone or wide, whereas the Dual-Link DVI is supported! It is a good point, because GeForce 6150 NVIDIA does not have such future . Radeon X1250  has also a coder TV integrated from Xilleon chips AMD.  integrated graphic solution ATI Radeon X1250 proposes the function Surround View which allow to connect up to three screens on the same system with graphics card Radeon PCI-Express . Finally, with regards to the electric consumption, the smoothness of 80nm allow  AMD to propose more economic than GeForce 6150 NVIDIA. The table below show the state of total electric consumption of our two test systems running  3DMark 06 in 1280x1024:   Total power consumption ( all system ) AMD RS690G 142 Watts NVIDIA GeForce 6150 151 Watts MSI K9AGM2   Motherboard MSI K9AGM2 MSI K9AGM2 offers four ports USB 2.0, two ports PS/2, a FireWire connector as well as a connector network RJ45. MSI has here the good idea to propose HDMI to us but the manufacturer is satisfied to supplement it by VGA DB15. No connector DVI is thus offered by this motherboard . Curiously, MSI engineers propose to us (in its place?) a parallel, however completely obsolete port in our days. MSI K9AGM2 has also six audio connectors with format mini-jack, connector SPDIF, the K9AGM2 does not have any optical output. K9AGM2 MSI Details   Asus m2 A-VM With format microATX, m2 A-VM from Asus adopts the last chipset in date from AMD, the RS690G with Radeon X1250. Enough traditional, m2 A-VM has the socket AM2 and four memory slots DDR2. Its power system has three-phase , we finds a connector ATX 24 pins and a connector ATX 12 volts. The couple northbridge and southbridge are cooled here by a completely passive simple metal radiators. We counts here two ports PCI, a connector PCI-Express 16x and a slot PCI-Express 1x . Asus m2 A-VM has disk drive, a connector IDE,  four connectors Serial-ATA 3Gb/ S. Asus used here audio codec Realtek ALC883 as well as a controller network Gigabit Realtek RTL8111B. motherboard Asus m2 A-VM As regards to external connector , Asus proposes two ports PS/2 , a parallel port , four connectors USB 2.0, RJ45 for network and three connectors audio mini-jack. From the start, we notes the absence of integrated FireWire or the absence of audio out numerical . Asus proposes to us as a compensation, a port VGA DB15 and  connector DVI-D. No connector HDMI is present on the motherboard . Asus m2 A-VM Details MSI with Asus, are the first manufacturers to propose motherboard based on chipset AMD RS690G with Radeon X1250. With the format ATX, the motherboard adopts a red PCB and  socket AM2. We start our tests with a series of benchmarks directed to memory and processor in order to make an idea about the performances of RS690G in every day use. We will compare it here with GeForce 6150 nForce 430, its direct competitor from NVIDIA and also GeForce 6100 with nForce 430. here is the list of used platform AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ AM2, motherboard Asus m2 NPV-VM (GeForce 6150 with nForce 430) - BIOS 0705, 2x1 GB DDR2 Corsair Twin2X 6400C4, Graphics card GeForce 7900 GTX, 2x Western DIGITAL Raptor 36 GB Serial-ATA 150 AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ AM2, motherboard Gigabyte GA-M51GM-S2B (GeForce 6100 with nForce 410) - BIOS F7, 2x1 GB DDR2 Corsair Twin2X 6400C4, Graphics card GeForce 7900 GTX, 2x Western DIGITAL Raptor 36 GB Serial-ATA 150 AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ AM2, motherboard Asus m2 A-VM (AMD RS690G with Radeon X1250) - BIOS 0202, 2x1 GB DDR2 Corsair Twin2X 6400C4, Graphics card GeForce 7900 GTX, 2x Western DIGITAL Raptor 36 GB Serial-ATA 150 All our platforms operated under Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 we used the last BIOS and driver available to the date of  test. Naturally we fixed the frequency of the system clock and memory latency to make all system equivalent . We note that, the BIOS still under development for motherboard Asus m2 A-VM witch does not allow to modify the memory latency  . A detail which will not fail to handicap the performances of AMD solution . 3DMark 06 - v1.1.0 - CPU   We starts with processor test  from 3DMark 06. Here our three platforms are almost with equality with a  light advantage for GeForce 6150. The AMD RS690G  rises here between the GeForce . PCMark 05 - v1.2.0 - CPU Let us now pass to processor  test  with PCMark, another tool for synthetic test from FutureMark. Here the RS690G is found on the last place , the systems based on GeForce 6100 and GeForce 6150 being  slightly faster. The variation is negligible between RS690G and GeForce 6150: lets say hardly 0,7%! PCMark 05 - v1.2.0 - Memory The PCMark 05 memory test show even worse result with RS690G. This one was penalized by BIOS asus m2 A-VM which does not allow  to regulate the advanced memory setting . In fact, two systems with NVIDIA show quite higher performances than with RS690G. Sandra Xi - SP1 - Processor The processor test from Sandra,  does not show any significant difference in  performance between our three platforms. All are on the same level. Sandra Xi - SP1 - Memory   The memory test here also is in the side of nvidia chipset let us again note the beta bios version used in asus motherboard Cinebench 9.5 Let us recall that Cinebench evaluates the performances of our various systems by measuring the time necessary to render 3D scene  . Here the two platforms from NVIDIA execute the test faster than RS690G but this could be also due to the memory latency used by asus beta bios. Windows Media Encoder 9.0 Under Windows Media Encoder we measure time necessary to each one of our systems to compress with WMV video with origin format AVI. The results is expressed in second the lower is better. There is small difference between all tested chipset the GeForce 6150 still the leader and execute this test faster by 6second than AMD RS69g  WinRar 3.62 With WinRAR, we measure time necessary to compress a little more than 650 MB of data. There the results are expressed in second . the Platform RS690G is the slowest  here, whereas GeForce 6150 again take the first place . Between the two systems the variation reaches eight seconds. ScienceMark 2.0 For ScienceMark, software measuring the aptitudes in mathematical calculation of our various system, the RS690G is almost in perfect equality with GeForce 6100. GeForce 6150 is able to be detached with higher performances 2,5%. And here this variation could not be justified by memory subsystem  performances . the nvidia 6150 has higher cpu performance Doom 3 - v1.3 - 1024x768x32 For Doom 3, the RS690G from AMD still in its third (LAST) position just under the two GeForce systems. A result which is probably explained by the memory latency in RS690G ( why the Asus BIOS  still under development and do not allow us to regulate all setting ??? :-( ). Far Cry - v1.4 - 1024x768x32 As Doom 3, the limited performances of memory subsystem in our RS690G has impact in performance of  Far Cry. In fact the RS690G is lagging behind, far behind the machines containing GeForce 6100 and of GeForce 6150. Know we will pass to the integrated video test. 3DMark 06 - v1.1.0 We starts here with 3DMark 06. Radeon X1300, however here the low end model with passive cooling and not more than 256 MB video memory, had the first position . VS GeForce 6150, Radeon X1250 is appreciably more powerful with a profit of 40% in 1024x768 and 46% in 1280x1024. Doom 3 - v1.3 Doom 3 show Radeon X1250 faster than GeForce 6150. This last in general is hardly better than GeForce 6100. In 1024x768, the x1250 from AMD is 27% faster than GeForce 6150. The variation is impressive but Doom 3 in any case in not playable on GeForce 6150 as on Radeon X1250. Radeon X1300 Only , a true graphics card, allow to play here  in 1280x1024,  Radeon X1300 is more than three times faster than Radeon X1250… Attention, the Catalyst driver here present a notable bug  and certain textures are corrupted with Radeon X1250. May be this can gibe x1250 nice boost in next update . Half-Life 2 Lost Coast Half-Life 2 Lost Coast remains logically in favor of X1300 which always seems a lot better than integrated graphic solution. In 1280x1024, Radeon X1300 is more than 2,5 times faster  than Radeon X1250… This last asserts performances higher than GeForce 6150 with a profit of 41% in 1280x1024. But as previous benchmark this profit do not allow to play the game in 1024x768 resolution … Far Cry v1.4 The last selected 3Dbenchmarks  for chipsets with integrated graphic is Far Cry. Whenever here once again we found Radeon X1300, being largely first. Radeon X1250 does better than GeForce 6150 with higher performances 55% in 1280x1024. AVIVO To finish this tests series , we wished to measure the impact of hardware acceleration AVIVO with Radeon X1250 on the performances of our processor, the Athlon 64 X2 5200+. For that we use version 7.3 PowerDVD, Cyberlink software  , and a flow MPEG2 HD extracted from Batman Returns in 720p with bit-rate 12Mbps. We launch the file for several minutes and during  we measure the processor usage in performances console of Windows XP. The operation is repeated with identical test on platform GeForce 6150 which proposes acceleration PureVideo HD. The first picture show PureVideo on GeForce 6150, on the right AVIVO on Radeon X1250 The results are pretty low,  whereas PureVideo seems to reduced CPU usage  by 3%, Avivo seems completely inoperative with processor usage of 33%! However the software PowerDVD 7.3 offers a good hardware acceleration Conclusion Arrived at the end of this review, it is necessary for us now to draw conclusion about  RS690G, the first chipset with integrated graphic solution from AMD. Technically, RS690G is posted like a good platform vs GeForce 6100 and GeForce 6150, its most direct competitors. Rather powerful and relatively functional. we should note that AMD has support to AHCI and RAID 10, two functions which are missing with controller Serial-ATA in nForce 430. Graphic side on the other hand, the situation is definitely less sympathetic . AMD proposes as strong points : Radeon X1250 animating RS690G benefits from an integrated  HDMI and a double digital display with HDCP. It is also considerable to note , That Dual-Link DVI is supported, but video acceleration offered by Radeon X1250 does not support format VC-1 HD-DVD and it is not either sufficient for high definition in 1080p, and user here are invited to be satisfied with 720p. And according to our tests, Avivo acceleration in 720p is very far from being able to compete with PureVideo HD from NVIDIA. in spite of compatibility with the graphic interface Aero Windows Vista, Radeon X1250 makes the dead end on model Shaders 3.0, but this choice can be reviewed  if the total performances 3D would not allow to benefit from it . attention do not confuse chipset with integrated graphic solution and 3D card, because the performances 3D in Radeon X1250 are far from beeng able to complete with a simple X1300. ! Yes Radeon X1250 is faster than GeForce 6150 from NVIDIA but not enough to make some game playable … xtreview is your : Video card - cpu - memory - Hard drive - power supply unit source we would be happy to answer for your question . if you have suggestion or comment regarding this review our support would be glad to help just join our forum and ask u will get the best answer to discuss check our forum section :-) RATE THIS REVIEW 1 2 3 4 5    / 5   View Stat

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