System setup and notes
Hardware
| Graphics cards | BFG GeForce 9800 GTX | MSI NX8800GTS-T2D512E-OC | ZOTAC GeForce 8800 GT 512MiB AMP! Edition | NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX 768MiB | NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MiB | ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GX2 1024MiB | Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 X2 1024MiB | Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 512MiB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current pricing, including VAT | £220 | £184 | £189 | £225 | £399 | £389 | £249 | £129 |
| Shader Model | 4.0 | 4.1 | ||||||
| Stream processors | 128 | 128 | 112 | 128 | 128 | 256 | 640 | 320 |
| GPU clock speed (MHz) | 675 | 678 | 700 | 576 | 612 | 600 | 825 | 777 |
| Shader clock speed (MHz) | 1,688 | 1,728 | 1,674 | 1,350 | 1,512 | 1,500 | 825 | 777 |
| Memory clock speed (MHz) | 2,200 | 1,944 | 2,000 | 1,800 | 2,160 | 2,000 | 1,802 | 2,252 |
| Memory bus width (Bits) | 256 | 384 | 256 | 256 | ||||
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 LGA775 (3.0GHz, 8MiB L2 cache, quad-core) | |||||||
| Motherboard | eVGA NF68 (nForce 680i SLI) | MSI X48 Platinum (X48+ICH9R) | ||||||
| Motherboard BIOS | P31 | P2B2 | ||||||
| Mainboard software | NVIDIA device driver 15.08 | Intel Inf 8.4.0.1016 | ||||||
| Memory | 4GiB (4x 1GiB) DDR2-1066 | 4GiB (4x 1GiB) DDR3-1066 | ||||||
| Memory timings and speed | 5-5-5-15 2T @ 1066MHz | 7-7-7-20 2T @ 1066MHz | ||||||
| PSU | Gigabyte ODIN GT 800W | Enermax Galaxy DXX 850W | ||||||
| Monitor | Dell 30in 3007WFP - 2,560x1,600 | |||||||
| Disk drive(s) | Seagate 160GiB SATAII (ST3160812AS) | |||||||
| Graphics driver | NVIDIA ForceWare 174.74 | NVIDIA ForceWare 169.25 | NVIDIA ForceWare 169.04 | NVIDIA ForceWare 169.25 | NVIDIA ForceWare 174.53 | CATALYST 8.2 beta 5 | CATALYST 7.12 | |
| Operating system | Windows Vista Business, 64-bit | |||||||
Software
| 3D Benchmarks | Company Of Heroes: Opposing Fronts v2.103: DX9 Enemy Territory: Quake Wars v1.2 (demo_00010.dem, map Valley): OpenGL Lost Planet: Extreme Condition v1.004 built-in benchmark: DX10 |
|---|
Notes
An eight-card line-up that takes in every major GPU priced above £129.Please, please note that the MSI and ZOTAC GeForce 8800 GTS/GT cards are heavily-overclocked versions of the SKU. As such, they aren't indicative of stock-clock performance, but both are available to buy, albeit at higher-than-stock prices - £184 and £189, respectively. Indeed, such are the speed increases over stock, the MSI GeForce 8800 GTS 512 operates with higher core and shader frequencies than the BFG 9800 GTX, albeit with slower RAM. But, hey, it's available to buy for £184 right now, which is only a £5 premium over stock-clocked models.
The very fact that heavily-overclocked GeForce 8800 GTS cards are available for sub-£200 will inevitably put the proverbial spanner in the NVIDIA works, especially if it wants partners' pricing to be around £225 for default-clocked models.
Benchmarks were conducted at 1,680x1,050, 1,920x1,200, and 2,560x1,600 with decent image-quality settings to boot.
