System setup and notes
Hardware
| Graphics cards | Sapphire X1650 Pro ULTIMATE 256MiB (594/1386) | HIS Radeon X1650XT iSilence II 256MiB (573.25/1350) | XFX GeForce 7600 GT Fatal1ty 256MiB (650/1600) | Foxconn GeForce 7600 GT 256MiB (560/1400) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.40GHz, 4MiB L2 cache, 1066MHz FSB LGA775) | |||
| Motherboard | ASUS PW5-DH Deluxe (Intel i975X) | EVGA nForce 680i SLI | ||
| BIOS revision | 1305 | 691N0P20 | ||
| Memory | 1GByte (2 x 512) OCZ26671024ELDCGE-K PC5400 | |||
| Memory timings and speed | 4-4-4-8 2T @ 667MHz (PC5300) | |||
| Disk drive(s) | Seagate 160GB SATAII (ST3160812AS) | |||
| Mainboard software | Intel Inf Update 8.0.1.1002 | NVIDIA platform driver 9.53 | ||
| Graphics driver | CATALYST 7.1 | ForceWare 93.71 | ||
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional, w/ SP2, 32-bit | |||
Software
| 3D Benchmarks |
Far Cry v1.33 Quake 4 v1.30 Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory v1.05 |
|---|
Notes
No problems to report during installation or testing, other than the inability to read the temperatures of the Radeon-based cards.Our trio is priced between £59 and £87, so it makes sense to compare them against one another and determine which offers the best value. We've also added a Foxconn GeForce 7600 GT, to provide some comparison numbers from a default-clocked 'GT.
Gaming performance was evaluated at 1280x1024 and 1600x1200. We ran 4xAA and 8xAF at the lower resolution and just 8xAF at 1600x1200. We feel that the settings are indicative of the kind of resolutions/quality a midrange graphics card should be able to provide, and the kind of monitors (TFTs, presumably) that folks would use with these kinds of systems.
As always, we ran each benchmark a trio of times and then calculated the arithmetic mean. If any of the three results looked erroneous, we threw all three away until we could collect three within a margin of statistical error. We report any major attempts needed to get three reliable results, of course. Apart from that, things are as noted on the graphs and in the graph commentary. Want to know more? Head for the HEXUS.community.
