System setup and notes
Hardware
- Crucial ATI Radeon X800 PRO 256MB, 8x AGP, 472.5/891
- ATI Radeon X800 XT PE 256MB, 8x AGP, 520/1120
- NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB, 8x AGP, 425/1100
- NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT 256MB, 8x AGP, 350/1000
- AMD Athlon 64 Model 3800+, 2400MHz
- ASUS A8V Deluxe S939 VIA K8T800 Pro motherboard (1005 BIOS)
- Corsair XMS3500C2, 2 x 256MB, 2-3-2-6 @ DDR400
- Samcheer 420w PSU
- AMD reference cooler
- WD 160JB 160GB hard drive (PATA)
- Dell P991 19" flat-faced CRT monitor
Software
- Windows XP Professional w/SP1
- NVIDIA ForceWare 61.76
- ATI CATALYST 4.7
- VIA Hyperion v4.51 chipset drivers
- DirectX 9.0b Runtime
- 3DMark03 v340
- AquaMark3
- Far Cry
- Unreal Tournament 2003 Retail (patched up to 2225 - HEXUS custom benchmark)
- Painkiller - HEXUS Custom benchmark
- Call Of Duty - HEXUS Custom benchmark
Notes
It's a high-end shootout. ATI's Radeon X800 PRO has the double disadvantage of running few rendering pipes (12 vs 16) and lower core and memory frequencies than the X800 XT PE. NVIDIA's two high-end cards both run with 16-pipe setups, and the cards are mainly differentiated by GPU and RAM speeds. Therefore, one should expect a larger performance deviation between the ATI cards.
There were no problems to report during installation and testing. ATI's Catalyst 4.7 and NVIDIA's 61.76 drivers were used. Benchmarks were carried out 3 times and the highest and lowest results were discarded. Time to see how Crucial's card stacks up in the presence of impressive company.
