Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2 was 2004's game of the year to many people. We'll be using our own custom HEXUS timedemo for the first time here, recorded while playing through one of the more hectic moments on one of the prison levels. All settings were on high for benchmarking, with water reflections set to 'Reflect All'.
From being rather CPU-limited at 1024x768, the Gigabyte 3D1 card steps forward and muscles its way past the 6800GT at the other resolutions on test, to the tune of over ten frames per second at 1600x1200.
The GeForce 6800GT gets its revenge with AA and AF enabled though, powering comprehensively ahead of the 3D1, which in turn leads over the 6600GT. 1600x1200 in particular is an example of the shortcomings of having 256MB shared between two GPUs, rather than for a single one - You are still left with only 128MB per core, and for many a modern game 1600x1200 with 4x AA and 8x AF really requires 256MB of frame buffer to operate effectively.
