Test System Setup

Processor(s): Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3GHz (333MHz x 9)
Cooling: Corsair Nautilus500 (Supplied by Corsair) with Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Compound (Supplied by Arctic Cooling)
Motherboard(s): ASUS Blitz Extreme P35 (Supplied by ASUS)
Memory: 2 X 1GB Corsair XMS3 DDR-3 1066MHz 7-7-7-21 (Supplied by Corsair)
Hard Disk(s): Hitachi 80GB 7200RPM SATA-2
Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2 and Windows Vista Ultimate
Drivers: Catalyst 7.8, Catalyst 7.9 and DX9c


We have gone through another over haul this month, instead of using the HD 2600 PRO we have moved back to the HD 2400 XT with the mid-range still being represented with the HD 2600 XT, we also continue to use the humble HD 2900 XT.

As for testing we had hoped to move our OpenGL testing from Prey to Enemy Territory: Quake Wars but thanks to the 7.8 drivers not actually supporting the game that simply wasn’t going to happened this time around but next time it will.

What we have done though is added Vista benchmarking for the first time which is going to become a permanent fixture to our monthly driver analysis. Deciding which way to attack the added operating system was a bit of a dilemma but we felt the best thing to do was add 3DMark06 for comparison sakes and then simply use DirectX 10 only games, in this case: Call of Juarez, Company of Heroes with the 1.7 patch along with Lost Planet and its Cave demo.

Let’s not ramble anymore and get stuck into our Windows XP benchmarks before we move onto our Vista tests.


3DMark05

Version and / or Patch Used: Build 130
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 across the whole board we don’t see anything to get excited about, all tests seem to be sitting pretty close together.