System setup and notes
Hardware
| Graphics cards | ZOTAC GeForce 9600 GT AMP Edition 512MiB | XFX GeForce 8800 GT Alpha Dog Edition XXX 256MiB | ASUS GeForce 8600 GTS 256MiB | Sapphire Radeon HD 3850 Ultimate 512MiB | Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 512MiB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current pricing, including VAT | £140 | £129 | £89 | £109 (as at 20/02/08) | £125 (as at 20/02/08) |
| Shader Model | 4.0 | 4.1 | |||
| Stream processors | 64 | 112 | 32 | 320 | 320 |
| GPU clock speed (MHz) | 725 | 600 | 675 | 669 | 777 |
| Shader clock speed (MHz) | 1,750 | N/A | 1,458 | 669 | 777 |
| Memory clock speed (MHz) | 2,000 | 1,400 | 2,016 | 1,658 | 2,252 |
| Memory bus width (Bits) | 256 | 128 | 256 | ||
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 LGA775 (3.0GHz, 8MiB L2 cache, quad-core) | ||||
| Motherboard | eVGA NF68 (nForce 680i SLI) | ASUS P5K Premium Deluxe WiFi-AP (Bearlake P35) | |||
| Motherboard BIOS | P31 | 0204 | |||
| Mainboard software | NVIDIA device driver 15.08 | Intel Inf 8.4.0.1016 | |||
| Memory | 4GiB (4 x 1GiB) DDR2-1066 | 4GiB (4 x 1GiB) DDR2-1066 | |||
| Memory timings and speed | 5-5-5-15 2T @ 1,066MHz | 5-5-5-15 2T @ 1,066MHz | |||
| PSU | Gigabyte ODIN GT 800W | Enermax Galaxy DXX 850W | |||
| Monitor | Dell 30in 2405WFP - 1,920x1,200 | ||||
| Disk drive(s) | Seagate 160GiB SATAII (ST3160812AS) | ||||
| Graphics driver | NVIDIA ForceWare 174.12 | NVIDIA ForceWare 169.25 | CATALYST 8.2 BETA | ||
| Operating system | Windows Vista Business, 64-bit | ||||
Software
| 3D Benchmarks | Company Of Heroes: Opposing Fronts v2.103: DX9 and DX10 Enemy Territory: Quake Wars v1.2 (demo_00010.dem, map Valley) Lost Planet: Extreme Condition v1.004 built-in benchmark: DX9 |
|---|
Notes
We've added a range of GPUs that currently retail between £89 and £140. ATI's comparison cards are based on its recently-introduced Radeon HD 3800-series of GPUs.Benchmarks were conducted at 1,280 x 1,024 (720 for LP) and 1,680 x 1,050. Image-quality settings were dialled to medium for everything other than Company of Heroes DX9, which was set to maximum. It's unfair to expect <£150 GPUs to render the latest games at higher resolutions and IQ settings, we feel.
Each benchmark was run thrice.
