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 | SAPPHIRE RADEON X1800 XL 256MB PCIe (500/990) | |
| Graphics Card #2 | XFX GeForce 7800 GT OC 256MB PCIe (450/1050) | |
| Graphics Card #3 | GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB PCIe (430/1200) | Graphics Card #4 | GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB PCIe (425/1100) |
| Graphics Card #5 | ATI RADEON X850 XT 256MB PCIe (520/1080) | Disk Drive | 160GB Western Digital 160JB IDE |
| BIOS Version | BIOS 13 | |
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional SP2 | |
| Mainboard Software | VIA Hyperion Pro v4.55 | |
Software
ATI 8.173.2.3-050921a-027133C for SAPPHIRE X1800 XL
ATI CATALYST 5.10 for ATI X850 XT
NVIDIA ForceWare 81.85 for NVIDIA-based cards
Futuremark 3DMark05 Build 1.2.0 - AA and AF set via application
DOOM 3 (v1282) Timedemo 1 - AA and AF set via application
Far Cry v1.33 - custom HEXUS benchmark - AA and AF set via application
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory v1.04 - custom HEXUS benchmark - AA and AF set via application
Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay - custom HEXUS benchmark - AA and AF set via control panel
Half-Life 2 - custom HEXUS benchmark - AA and AF via application
Notes
NVIDIA's GeForce 7800 GTX and GeForce 6800 Ultra and ATI's RADEON X850 XT cards will provide the comparison benchmarks against the two top-end cards from SAPPHIRE and XFX. It will be interesting to see just how close XFX's overclocked GeForce 7800 GT can get to the benchmarks laid down by the GTX, and similarly, just how much faster SAPPHIRE's X1800 XL card will be than the present X850 XT, which, if you recall, actually operates at higher core and memory frequencies and uses a broadly similar 16-pipe rendering setup.
The RADEON X1800 XL was tested with the drivers provided by SAPPHIRE. CATALYST 5.10s aren't recognised as yet, and it will be the next iteration of driver, CATALYST 5.11, that will provide full X1xxx-series support. The comparison X850 XT, however, was tested with CAT. 5.10s. All three NVIDIA-based cards were benchmarked with the latest WHQL'd driver set at the time of writing, ForceWare 81.85.
