Futuremark 3DMark03 (GPU Comparison)

First, let's pit a variety of mobile GPUs against the Go5200. I used a resolution of 1024 x 768 x 32 for these tests. The clock speeds of the GPUs are listed below :-

Let's take a look at the results :-

Overall 3DMark Score

The Go5200 may not be in same league as other current mobile GPUs with only 742 3DMarks but it certainly does a LOT better than the Intel Extreme Graphics 2 crap that has been shipping with many notebooks these days. Even with the faster core speed, integrated graphics circuitry like Intel's Extreme Graphics 2 can never hope to compete effectively with even the Go5200.

Game Tests

The Go5200 did pretty alright in the Wings Of Fury DX7 game test but was far from the level of performance of the other mobile GPUs. Even the ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 was 61% faster than it in that game!

But it completely fell face down when presented with the more intensive game tests. The Go5200 hardly raised its frame rate above 3 fps even when the other GPUs were posting over 10 fps. Its only saving grace was its ability to run the Mother Nature DX9 game test which was not possible on the Mobility Radeon 9000.

On the other hand, when you compare it against integrated circuitry like Intel's Extreme Graphics 2, it is way better and faster. Intel's graphics solution only managed to eke out 12.6 fps in the Wings of Fury test and failed to complete all the other game tests. Extremely Poor Graphics, if you ask me!

Fill Rate Tests

Again, the Go5200 was the poorest performer amongst the mobile GPUs. All thanks to its low clock speed. Even the Mobility Radeon 9000 almost doubled its fill rate.

Other Feature Tests

The Go5200 was again at the bottom of the ladder. And with a significant margin. The only edge it had over the Mobility Radeon 9000 was its support for Pixel Shader 2.0.

Please note that the Rev. 52.16 driver used in this test has a 3DMark-specific optimization for the Pixel Shader 2.0 test. Therefore, a valid comparison cannot be made between NVIDIA GPUs and the other GPUs. For more information, please read our recent article on Futuremark's Approved NVIDIA Drivers For 3DMark03.

Although a valid comparison of the Go5200's Pixel Shader 2.0 performance cannot be made, it's safe to say that the Go5200's real Pixel Shader 2.0 performance is less than what we have recorded in 3DMark03.

Analysis

As far as 3DMark03 is concerned, the NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 is a truly pathetic performer. Even the ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 was, on the average, 64% faster than it.

Of course, we must remember that Toshiba clocked the Go5200 and its RAM at low clock speeds. It would definitely perform better had it been clocked at the rated speeds of 300MHz core and 600MHz DDR memory.

Even underclocked, it did prove to be much faster than the poor-excuse-of-a-3D-solution called the Intel Extreme Graphics 2 which, unfortunately, still powers many notebooks.