GeForce 6100

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NulloModo

Supreme [H]ardness
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Dec 16, 2002
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4,602
Hey,

My friend bought a new computer last night. He had been using a 600 Mhz PIII for a long time, and decided it was finally time to upgrade. He ended up getting a pretty decent open box deal for a system with an AMD X2 3800, gig of ram, dual layer DVD burner + a second drive, 250 gig hard drive, and some other random shizzle, all for $680. The kicker though is that the graphics are integrated, and it is a GeForce 6100 chip, that borrows 128 megs of ram from the main system memory.

Now, he was apparently told by the sales guy at Best Buy that this card will have no problem playing current games like Fear, Oblivion, BF2, etc. I want to call shens on that, but I have never followed any of the nVidia line-up. The only integrated solution I have ever tried was an Intel i740 several years back, and I remember it could sort of run a year old version of Rainbow Six choppily. I don't imagine the 6100 would do much better with current games.

Anyone, has anyone ever used a 6100? Can it handle the things he is expecting it to?
 
NulloModo said:
he was apparently told by the sales guy at Best Buy that this card will have no problem playing current games like Fear, Oblivion, BF2, etc
Click to expand...

Another reason to never trust sales guys, well that depends what you call no problem, if F.E.A.R at 320x240 with every setting at minimum, getting 15 fps if you lucky is no problem then it will run the games fine lol

Heres a review of the 6100 with some benchies showing the 6100 getting 37.5 fps on UT2004 at 800x600 and pulling whopping 1309 3DMark03 marks.
 
I had a Biostar C51 chipset motherboard. The performance of the integrated 6100 video was noticably inferior to the 6200 Turbo Cache. The 6100 is around the same speed as a 9600SE.

Fear, Oblivion and BF2 would play pretty badly on a 6100. An upgrade is pretty cheap:

7600GS 256MB $99.99AR + $4.69 shipping: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130011
X1600Pro 256MB $99.99AR + free shipping: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102651
X800 128MB $74.99AR + 4.89 shipping: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127176

The 7600GS is faster than the X1600Pro, but the 12 pipeline X800 128MB is a better bang for the buck. All 3 cards can play FEAR, Oblivion and BF2, but as expected for the budget price you won't get maximum details and high resolution at the same time.

If he has a higher budget much better cards are available in the $200 range: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130283 $169AR 7600GT 256MB and http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814142067 $180AR X1800GTO 256MB.
 
Hmm, suposedly last he was downloading the Fear demo to see how it ran, but I went to sleep before he finished, so I will get a report on that today.

He does at least have a 16x PCI-E slot available, and is not totally against the idea of buying a video card, as long as it doesn't cost much more than $100, so I guess I will tell him to look at a X1600xt or a 6600gt
 
out of the x1600xt and 6600gt I'd go for the x1600xt, its newer and performs nearly twice as good as the 6600gt in F.E.A.R
 
NulloModo said:
as long as it doesn't cost much more than $100, so I guess I will tell him to look at a X1600xt or a 6600gt
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The 6600GT isn't worth considering anymore. The eVGA 7600GS I linked above (560MHz core, 850MHz memory) is faster and cheaper. The increased shading power is more important than the slightly faster memory on the 6600GT, especially on the 3 games you listed. And that 560MHz 7600GS is faster and cheaper than the X1600XT. http://www.evga.com/products/moreinfo.asp?pn=256-P2-N547-TX&family=22

Stock speed 7600GS cards only run at 400MHz core and 800MHz memory but aren't any cheaper than the faster eVGA version.
 
i had a 6100 integrated on almost the same rig as ure friends, cept i had an x2 4200+, and 2gigs of ram (its a gateway right?), it dfoes play bf2 at medium settings at 1024x768 just fin, prob does better in hl2, and prob around 800x600 medium in oblivion, fairly decent integrated card, but i gt my 7600gt and well lets say i hope to never see that integrated card ever again, but btw its better than my 5700le oc. But my 7600gt is aweomse.. runs bf2 MAX settings at 1600x1200, oblivion prob around 1024 max, just a great card, sriously upgrade to a 7600gt, x1800xt, or above, trust me its worth it, o ya btw tell him to get another 1gig of ram if he can afford it.
 
Well, I relayed the advice, and he went out and bought a Geforce 7300gt instead...

He was apparently not at all happy with the performance of his integrated card on Fear. He's trying to install the 7300 tonight, so I guess I will hear back how that turns out... at least apparently it has a 2 week return policy.

I am just out of the video card, I am still running a Radeon 9500pro, and it suits my needs just fine, then again, the newest 3D game on my system is probably the original Unreal Tournament.
 
A 7300GS has a pretty bad price/performance ratio. It has 4 pixel pipelines (2 ROPs, 3 VS) and a 64-bit memory interface. Stock speeds are 550MHz core (1100MP/s fillrate) and 400MHz DDR memory (800MHz effective = 6.4GB/s local bandwidth + PCI-E bus bandwidth).

The eVGA 7600GS 256MB for $99.99AR that I recommended above has 12 pixel pipelines (8 ROPs, 5 VS) and a 128-bit memory interface. That card runs at 550MHz core (4400MP/s fillrate) and 425MHz DDR memory (850MHz effective = 13.6GB/s bandwidth).

It would be interesting to hear how Oblivion runs on that 7300GS. :p
 
pxc said:
A 7300GS has a pretty bad price/performance ratio. It has 4 pixel pipelines (2 ROPs, 3 VS) and a 64-bit memory interface. Stock speeds are 550MHz core (1100MP/s fillrate) and 400MHz DDR memory (800MHz effective = 6.4GB/s local bandwidth + PCI-E bus bandwidth).

The eVGA 7600GS 256MB for $99.99AR that I recommended above has 12 pixel pipelines (8 ROPs, 5 VS) and a 128-bit memory interface. That card runs at 550MHz core (4400MP/s fillrate) and 425MHz DDR memory (850MHz effective = 13.6GB/s bandwidth).

It would be interesting to hear how Oblivion runs on that 7300GS. :p
Click to expand...

What can I say, he's hard headed, plus he wanted to buy it today, not wait for somewhere to ship, which I can sort of agree with, I don't deal with rebates, and I'd rather buy something and have it in my hands than order it and have to wait, even if it means paying a little extra.
 
So it turns out the 7300 plays Fear OK, albeit a little choppy, and he is still using a 17" crt so who knows what crappy resolution he is running. Just an FYI for you gamers on a budget with tiny as screens out there.
 
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