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 (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, Windows Vista
Drivers: Catalyst 7.9, Catalyst 7.10 and DX9c

There’s only one change to our array of benchmarks this month, the removal of Lost Planet. Everything else is the same. Why the removal? Well, the latest drivers saw us get a grand total of three resolution choices in Lost Planet on all the cards; and let me give you a tip, none of them where what we always test at.

Due to time constraints we didn’t replace it this month, we’ll have something new next month though.


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.




There seems to be a small increase across the board, but nothing to get excited about. Let’s quickly look at 3DMark06 before we jump head first into our real world tests.