System setup and notes
Hardware
| System | XFX GeForce 8800 GTX XXX Edition 768MiB | Foxconn FV-N88XMAD2-OD 768MiB | ASUS EN8800GTS/HTDP/640M 640MiB | NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2 1GiB | NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX 512MiB | Sapphire Radeon X1950 XTX 512MiB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93GHz, 4MiB L2 cache, LGA775) | |||||
| Motherboard | EVGA nForce 680i SLI | ASUS P5W-DH Deluxe (975X+ICH7R) | ||||
| Memory | 2GiB (2 x 1024) Corsair PC8500 EPP | 2GiB (2 x 1024) Patriot XLBK | ||||
| Memory timings and speed | 4-4-4-12 2T @ 800MHz (PC6400) | |||||
| Graphics card(s) | XFX GeForce 8800 GTX XXX Edition 768MiB (630/2000) | Foxconn FV-N88XMAD2-OD 768MiB (575/1800) | ASUS EN8800GTS/HTDP/640M 640MiB (513/1600) | NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2 1GiB (500/1200) | NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX 512MiB (650/1600) | ATI Radeon X1950 XTX 512MiB (650/2000) |
| PSU | FSP Epsilon 600W | |||||
| Monitor | Dell 2405FPW - 1920x1200 | |||||
| Disk drive(s) | Seagate 160GB SATAII (ST3160812AS) | |||||
| Mainboard software | NVIDIA platform driver 9.53 | Intel Inf 8.0.1.1002 | ||||
| Graphics driver | ForceWare 97.02 | ForceWare 93.71 | CATALYST 6.10 | |||
| 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 |
|---|
No problems to report during installation or rigorous testing in Windows XP 32-bit. However, at the time of writing, NVIDIA did not have WHQL'd Microsoft Vista drivers for its range of GeForce cards. Naughty, naughty.
It's faster and faster in this round-up. Just how much difference does the extra clockspeed make in our benchmarks? Keep on readin'.