Test System Setup

Processor(s): AMD Athlon X2 3800+
Motherboard(s): ASUS A8N SLI Premium (Supplied by ASUS)
Memory: 2 X 1GB Crucial DDR (Supplied by Crucial)
Hard Disk(s): WD Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA (Supplied by Western Digital)
Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP1
Drivers: ATI Catalyst 5.11 and 5.12 and DX9c


This month there really hasn’t been too much of a change to the test system except that we have dropped our 2 x 512MB modules and changed to brand new 2 x 1GB modules from Crucial. Apart from that we have our normal X550, X700 and X850 from GeCube to test low end, mid and high end so we can see where the new drivers really do benefit us.

As we can see in the release notes we are suppose to see some performance increase with Dual Core or HyperThreading processors. As we use an X2 3800+ we fall into the Dual Core category and we have our fingers crossed that we leave the year with some free performance once again.


3DMark03

Version and / or Patch Used: Build 360
Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com
Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark03/
Buy It Here




By combining full DX8 and partial DX9 support with completely new tests and graphics over the previous version, 3DMark03 continues the legacy of being the industry standard 3D benchmark.




Apart from the X850XT seeing a small improvement at the lower resolution there isn’t anything too exciting to report here.