System Setup and Notes
The same FX-60 test platforms that we used to test ATI Radeon X1900 XT and XTX recently was used to test the three new NVIDIA products. While more powerful than a 7600 GT will ever see, the test system is nonetheless useful for reference evaluation of that product.Time pressures for your author due to our yearly Cebit expedition means that Radeon X1600 XT, GeForce 6600 GT and GeForce 6800 GS numbers to compare the 7600 GT to are absent until Cebit is done and dusted. We'll update you when that happens. Therefore, with Radeon X1800 XT, Radeon X1900 XT and XTX to fight the 7900s, and GeForce 7800 GTX and GTX 512 thrown in to boot, the performance gap upwards from 7600 GT is what's explored.
That comparison might be more useful than you think, keep reading to see why. NVIDIA helpfully supplied a driver to press when the boards were sampled, however that was soon replaced by a newer driver to fix an issue with F.E.A.R. That driver is what was used to test all of the GeForce products (7600, 7800 and 7900, regardless of SKU) and that driver (84.17) is what'll appear as the WHQL release in short order, at the time of writing.
The F.E.A.R. issue concerns antialiasing performance and assists NVIDIA's products significantly, so enjoy that driver if you're an NVIDIA product owner that enjoys Monolith's pant-wetting gun-fest.
GTX 256 was only used in the game tests, not the theoretical and architectural tests.
Hardware
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| Processor(s) | AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 2.6GHz, dual-core, 1MiB L2 per core, Toledo |
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| Mainboard(s) | ASUS A8R-MVP ATI RD480 Crossfire ULi M1575 |
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe NVIDIA nForce4 SLI |
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| Memory | 2 x 512MiB G.Skill F1-3200DSU2-1GBLE | ||
| Memory Timings | 2-2-2-5 @ 400MHz, 1T | ||
| BIOS Version | 0402 | 1016.001 | |
| Disk Drive | 80GB Western Digital PATA | ||
| Graphics Card(s) | ATI Radeon X1900 XTX (650/775) ATI Radeon X1900 XT (650/750) |
NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX (650/800) NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT (450/660) NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT (560/700) NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX 512 (550/850) NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX (430/550) |
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| Graphics Driver | CATALYST 6.2 BETA | ForceWare 84.17 | |
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional, SP2, 32-bit | ||
| Core Logic Driver(s) | ULi M1575 Chipset Driver V1.0.5.2a | nForce4 AMD Edition 6.70 | |
Software
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Notes
We use separate test platforms for ATI and NVIDIA graphics boards to let each IHV's products work best on their own core logic. While the differences are slight, it's a worthwhile pursuit. The testing is architecturally focussed, our evaluation with a range of top-tier games.Driver defaults were used throughout, and stock clocks were used for all cards unless noted. If in-game controls could be used for both antialiasing and anisotropic texture filtering, they were, otherwise the driver was used to force the required levels (if applicable and the game allowed it without rendering errors). Tested resolutions were 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1600x1200 and 1920x1200.
Game tests were run a minimum of three times at each setting, and the median value reported. In the case of manual 'run-through' testing with FRAPS, three consecutive runs that produced repeatable results, after further analysis, were used. If values weren't part of a repeatable set, they were discarded and obtained again.
If you have any questions or comments about our testing methods, please feel free to drop by any time and share in the HEXUS.community.
