System setup and notes
Hardware and Software
Test Platforms
| Systems | Athlon 64 S939 AGP System | Athlon 64 S939 PCI-Express System |
| Processor | AMD Athlon 64 4000+ | |
| Mainboard | ASUS A8V Deluxe K8T800 Pro | ABIT AX8 K8T890 |
| Memory | 1GByte (2x512MB) Corsair XMS3200XL | Memory timings | 2-2-2-5 1T @ DDR400 |
| Graphics Card #1 | GeCube RADEON X800XLA-VIVO 256MB AGP | |
| Graphics Card #3 | ATI RADEON X850 XT PE 256MB PCIe | |
| Graphics Card #3 | NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT 256MB PCIe | Graphics Card #4 | NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB PCIe | Disk Drive | 160GB WD IDE |
| BIOS Version | BIOS 11 - 20th April 2005 | BIOS 10 - 14th February 2005 |
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional, SP2 | |
| Mainboard Software | VIA Hyperion Pro v4.55 | |
Software
ATI CATALYST 5.4 for ATI-based cards
NVIDIA ForceWare 71.89 for NVIDIA-based cards
Futuremark 3DMark05 Build 1.2.0 - AA and AF set via application
DOOM 3 v1.1 (1282) Timedemo 1 - AA and AF set via application
Far Cry v1.3 - custom HEXUS benchmark - AA and AF set via application
Half-Life 2 - custom HEXUS benchmark - AA and AF set via application
Chronicles Of Riddick - Escape from Butchers Bay - custom HEXUS benchmark - AA and AF set via control panel
Notes
GeCube's X800XLA-VIVO is the only AGP-equipped card on test, and the Rialto bridge shouldn't impinge upon performance. However, both NVIDIA-based cards are bridged in the other direction, that is, from AGP-to-PCIe. Only the comparison RADEON X850 XT PE is run off its native conduit. GeCube's model is priced at around £225. That puts it around £35 below the price of an average GeForce 6800 GT PCIe and around £100 below both GeForce 6800 Ultra and RADEON X850 XT PE cards. It will be interesting to see if GeCube's card can outmuscle its closest competitor, the 6800 GT. All tested cards have a full 16-pipe rendering setup and use 256-bit memory interfaces for oodles of pixel-pushing power and bandwidth. >£200 is definitely high-end territory.
