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): GIGABYTE X48-DQ6 (Supplied by GIGABYTE)

Memory: 2 X 1GB Kingston PC6400 DDR-2 3-3-3-10 (KHX6400D2ULK2/2G) (Supplied by Kingston)

Hard Disk(s): Seagate 250GB 7200RPM SATA-2 7200.10 (Supplied by Seagate)

Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2 and Windows Vista SP1

Drivers: ATI Catalyst 8.3, ForceWare 174.53 (9 Series) and ForceWare 169.25 (8 Series)

With the new GeForce 9800 GTX in hand, it was clear what we had to compare it against.

We wanted to see just how much extra performance the GX2 offers over the GTX, we also wanted to see how the GTX faired against the HD 3870 X2 which really sits at the same price. We've also got the overclocked 8800GT which performs pretty much on par with a stock clocked 8800GTS.

Alright then, I think we are ready. Let's see how we go.

3DMark06

Version and / or Patch Used: Build 110

Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com

Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark06/

Buy It Here

3DMark06 is the very latest version of the "Gamers Benchmark" from FutureMark. The newest version of 3DMark expands on the tests in 3DMark05 by adding graphical effects using Shader Model 3.0 and HDR (High Dynamic Range lighting) which will push even the best DX9 graphics cards to the extremes.

3DMark06 also focuses on not just the GPU but the CPU using the AGEIA PhysX software physics library to effectively test single and Dual Core processors.

Straight away at the higher resolution we can see some decent gains over the 8800GT OC. At the lower resolution it's only just behind the dual GPU offerings from NVIDIA and AMD, only at the higher resolution does it really begin to fall back.