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 XMS3200 XL | Memory timings | 2-2-2-5 1T @ DDR400 |
| Graphics Card #1 | PowerColor X800 GT Extreme 256MB PCIe (500/1050) | |
| Graphics Card #2 | PowerColor X800 GT EVO Tide Water 256MB PCIe (500/1050) | |
| Graphics Card #3 | PowerColor X800 GT 256MB PCIe (475/980) | |
| Graphics Card #4 | Connect3D Radeon X800 GTO 256MB PCIe (400/980) | Graphics Card #5 | Galaxy GeForce 6600 GT 128MB PCIe (525/1050) | Graphics Card #6 | NVIDIA reference GeForce 6800 GT 256MB PCIe (350/1000) | Disk Drive | 160GB Western Digtal 160JB IDE |
| BIOS Version | BIOS 13 | |
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional SP2 | |
| Mainboard Software | VIA Hyperion Pro v4.55 | |
Software
ATI CATALYST 5.7 for ATI-based cards
NVIDIA ForceWare 77.72 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
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory - custom HEXUS benchmark
Notes
Both the PowerColor's X800 GT Xtreme and EVO cards run at identical base frequencies of 500MHz core and 1050MHz memory. We've decided to bunch the cards together in the following benchmarks. As the list above shows, we'll be looking at comparative performance against a number of midrange cards, including a default-clocked Radeon X800 GT 256MB, an X800 GTO, and SAPPHIRE's moddable X800 GTO 256MB.
No problems to report during installation and testing.
Before embarking on the usual benchmarking crusade, let's take a quick look at the cards' vital statistics.
| Card | PowerColor GameFX X800 GT Xtreme/EVO | PowerColor GameFX X800 GT | Connect3D X800 GTO | SAPPHIRE X800 GTO² | Galaxy GeForce 6600 GT | GeForce 6800 GT | Manufacturing process | 130nm | 130nm | 130nm | 130nm | 110nm | 130nm | Interface/speed | PCI-Express | PCI-Express | PCI-Express | PCI-Express | PCI-Express | PCI-Express | Core speed | 500MHz | 475MHz | 400MHz | 400MHz | 525MHz | 350MHz | Rendering pipelines | 8 | 8 | 12 | 12/16 | 8 | 16 | Fillrate (multi-texturing) | 4.0GTexels/s | 3.8GTexels/s | 4.8GTexels/s | 4.8/6.4GTexels/s | 4.2GTexels/s | 5.6GTexels/s | Onboard memory | 256MB | 256MB | 256MB | 256MB | 128MB | 256MB | Memory interface | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 128-bit | 256-bit | Memory speed | 1050MHz | 980MHz | 980MHz | 980MHz | 1050MHz | 1000MHz | Memory bandwidth (max) | 33.6GB/s | 31.36GB/s | 31.36GB/s | 31.36GB/s | 16.8GB/s | 32GB/s | Vertex shaders | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 6 | Shader Model | 2.0b | 2.0b | 2.0b | 2.0b | 3.0 | 3.0 | Cheapest online price | £125/£199 | £105 | £120 | £150 | £105 | £185 | Notable features | 1.6ns RAM, Watercooling | R480 core | 12 fragment processors | Moddable to 16 pipes | Shader Model 3.0, SLI | Shader Model 3.0, SLI |
Common sense tells us that both PowerColor X800 GT special edition cards, clocked in at 500MHz core and 1050MHz memory, will be faster than the basic X800 GT 256MB SKU but slower than the 12-pipe X800 GTO 256MB model.
