Test System Setup

Processor: Intel Pentium EE 840 (3.73GHz) Smithfield

Motherboard: Gigabyte G1-975X

Memory: 2 x 1GB DDR-2 533

Hard Disk: Western Digital 120GB SATA

Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2

Drivers: ATI Catalyst 6.1 and DX9c

As mentioned in the introduction, we unfortunately couldn't get hold of a GeForce 7800GTX 512 graphics card, so our benchmarks here today will be ATI vs. ATI. We do however have a fairly high-end Intel test bed to work with which should suit the new X1900XTX just fine with one of the fastest Intel processors out and the new Intel 975X gamers chipset based on a motherboard from Gigabyte which supports Crossfire without any issues.

We're comparing the brand new Radeon X1900XTX against a single and dual X1800XT configuration to see just where the new graphics card from ATI sits in the performance standings. The X1900XTX has a lot of power under the hood, so we're expecting some decent increases.

For some reason we couldn't get the Crossfire setup to work at 1600 x 1200 so we only included 1024 x 768 results for the dual X1800XT configuration. We're unsure when X1900 series Crossfire cards will be available but we would expect them to be coming out in a month or two according to what we've heard. There was a rumor going around at the Gigabyte office that a master card was not needed for X1900 Crossfire but this is untrue, a master card is required for the dual graphics setup.

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.

Please Note: Due to recent events with the 3DMark03 series, we are adding results purely for those who are still in favor of 3DMark03. These results should not be taken too seriously and are only added for interest sakes.

In our first test we can see the dual X1800XT Crossfire setup has a demanding lead but what's most important for us is the lead which the X1900XTX has over the X1800XT, which is around 15% even in a less intensive 3D application like 3DMark03 which is now aging.