Additional Info--NVIDIA GeForce2 MX vs ATI Radeon

graphics were compared in our review of the new Power Mac G4 533DP. We forgot to run Rene Trost's ThroughPut 1.5 which measures the rate of bytes flowing from RAM to the graphics card's VRAM using the CPU, FPU, AltiVec and CopyBits. Most current 3D video games use the FPU but use of the G4's AltiVec (Velocity Engine) is near. CopyBits gives a relative measure of 2D performance. Here are the results in megabytes per second for the NVIDIA and Radeon cards in our 533DP and for comparison a 450 MHz G4 Cube with an ATI Rage 128 Pro card and an 8500 with onboard graphics:

RAM to VRAM Rate MB/sec Measured by ThroughPut 1.5

Unit	GeForce2 MX*	Radeon*	Rage 128 Pro**	8500 Stock***
Central Processor (CPU)	157	48	47	20
Floating Point (FPU)	342	164	78	39
AltiVec	570	172	118	--
CopyBits	180	322	178	48

*Power Mac G4 533DP, **G4 Cube 450, ***Power Mac 8500

The conclusions are similar. The GeForce2 MX excels in 3D (FPU) and the Radeon excels in 2D (CopyBits). The frame rate of 3D games will get a great boost when they make use of the G4's special AltiVec unit instead of the FPU.