System setup and notes
Hardware and Software
Test Platforms
| Systems | Athlon 64 S939 PCI-Express System | |
| Processor | AMD Athlon 64 4000+ | |
| Mainboard | ABIT AX8 K8T890 | |
| Memory | 1GByte (2x512MB) Corsair XMS3200XL | Memory timings | 2-2-2-5 1T @ DDR400 |
| Graphics Card #1 | BFG GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB PCIe (460/1300) | |
| Graphics Card #2 | Leadtek PX7800 GTX TDH MyVIVO 256MB PCIe (430/1200) | Graphics Card #3 | XFX GeForce 7800 GTX Extreme Edition 256MB PCIe (490/1300) |
| Graphics Card #4 | NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB PCIe reference (430/1200) | |
| Graphics Card #5 | NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB PCIe (425/1100) | Graphics Card #6 | ATI RADEON X850 XT PE 256MB PCIe (540/1180 | Disk Drive | 160GB Western Digital 160JB IDE |
| Power supply | OCZ PowerStream 520W with adjustable rails | |
| BIOS Version | BIOS 10 - 14th February 2005 | |
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional, SP2 | |
| Mainboard Software | VIA Hyperion Pro v4.55 | |
Software
NVIDIA ForceWare 77.72 for all GeForce 7800 GTX cards
NVIDIA ForceWare 71.89 for GeForce 6800 Ultra
ATI CATALYST 5.4 for ATI X850 XT PE
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
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory - custom HEXUS benchmark
Notes
A total of 4 GeForce 7800 GTX cards will be benchmarked against one another; three retail and a single reference model. GeForce 7800 GTX cards run with multiple internal clock speeds. We refer to the GPU's core speed as the frequency at which the shader units are run at, which is 430MHz for the reference design and Leadtek cards, 460MHz for the BFG, and 490MHz for the XFX Extreme Edition. We expect the Leadtek card to benchmark pretty much at the same level as the reference model. Both share identical core and RAM frequencies. We've run the Leadtek PX7800 GTX TDH MyVIVO at its default BIOS frequencies, and we fully appreciate that the company has a custom, down loadable BIOS that forces the speed up to 450MHz core and 1250MHz RAM. We ran with what the card ships with out-of-the-box, however.
There's little doubt that XFX's Extreme Edition will be fastest of all, but let's remember that it also costs more than the others. Finally, a couple of top-end cards from the previous generation are included to highlight the performance advances made by NVIDIA's GeForce 7800 GTX GPU.
On to the benchmarks.
