Test System Setup

Processor(s): Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3150MHz or 350MHz FSB 1:1
Motherboard(s): ASUS P5B Deluxe (Supplied by ASUS)
Memory: 2 X 1GB G.Skill HZ PC8000 @ 350MHz 4-4-4-12 (Supplied by Bronet)
Hard Disk(s): Hitachi 80GB 7200RPM SATA 2
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2


The single performance improvement mentioned in the release notes is only for Vista and only concentrates on OpenGL performance. We do not use Vista for our testing for the biggest reason that, at this stage, gaming performance is still not there. While with this driver release Vista might see performance increases of 15% – and up to 30% on enthusiast class products like the Radeon X1950 series – it is still not going to be capable of performing as well as a Windows XP machine.

With all that said if you are a Vista user and you have seen performance improvements let us know via the forum comments.


3DMark05

Version and / or Patch Used: Build 120
Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com
Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark05/
Buy It Here




3DMark05 is now the second latest version in the popular 3DMark "Gamers Benchmark" series. It includes a complete set of DX9 benchmarks which tests Shader Model 2.0 and above.

For more information on the 3DMark05 benchmark, we recommend you read our preview here.




Straight away we can see that there are no performance gains across the board.