System setup and notes
Basic setup
- Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz 800FSB CPU
- EPoX 4PDA2+ i865PE Springdale motherboard
- 2 x 256MB Corsair XMS3500 memory run at 2-6-2-2 @ DDR400
- Intel reference cooler
- IBM 41.5GB Hard drive
- Pioneer 105 DVD/RW
- 420w Samcheer PSU
- Samsung 181T 18.1" TFT
- Hansol 920D 19" flat CRT for 1600x1200x32 tests
Video Cards used
- Triplex REDai Radeon 9600 Pro (420/680)
- Tyan Tachyon G9600 Pro 128MB (400/600)
- NVIDIA reference GeForce FX 5600 Ultra Rev. 2 128MB
- Hercules 3D Prophet 9600 256MB (325/400)
Software
- Windows XP Professional Build 2600.xpclient.010817-1148
Notes
The Triplex will be benchmarked against a regular Radeon 9600 Pro in the form of Tyan's G9600 Pro. ATi and its partners recently launched a standard Radeon 9600 (non-Pro). We reviewed the Hercules 256MB retail version recently and found that the extra RAM did little for performance. Based on the same architecture as the 9600 Pro, its lower clock speeds of 325MHz core and 400Mhz should put it at the bottom of our quartet. This quartet is completed by NVIDIA's reference FX 5600 Ultra rev. 2 card.
Benchmarks will be conducted at 1024x768x32 and 1600x1200x32. 4x antialiasing and 8x anisotropic filtering will be applied to see how the cards cope with image enhancement. The REDai's 2D appeared to be as good as any other Radeon card's, and it is now increasingly difficult to find a bad 2D card. The days of poor card display at 1024x768x32 are behind us now, thankfully.
