Test System Setup

Processor(s): Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3GHz (333MHz x 9)

Motherboard(s): ASUS P5K3 Deluxe (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

Drivers: Nvidia ForceWare 158.22, Catalyst 7.4, HD2900XT 47096 and DX9c

This is a really exciting article as we have just began to implement some new tests to offer you the reader more for your money - you do not pay anything to begin with, so you are actually getting incredible value but it just got better.

We have got rid of the non-HDR test for Half Life 2: Lost Coast and added RyderMark as a new synthetic test along with Supreme Commander. While we do not have Lost Planet here due to it not wanting to play nice with the HD 2900 XT we will have it in up and coming articles along with other DX10 benchmarks as we migrate over to Windows Vista soon.

The biggest additions are the inclusion of real world temperature testing, sound levels and power consumption draw both at idle and load. We are also testing on our new ASUS P5K3 DDR-3 platform.

We will not ramble on anymore; let us see what kind of numbers we got with the HD 2900 XT, a new test platform and newest drivers! We have also got some fancy new benchmark graphs to go along with our new website design.

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.

In 3DMark05 we can see that across the board the Radeon HD 2900 XT is the fastest card, outperforming both the GeForce 8800GTS and GTX from Nvidia along with showing the kind of increase we get when compared to the older Radeon X1950XTX.