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 and Forceware 162.18

When it came to benchmarking the most obvious inclusions were the 320MB 8800GTS which is the main competition along with the HD 2900 XT so we know just how far behind the new PRO variant sits.

While we wanted to include overclocking benchmarks, due to time constraints we didn't get the opportunity but this is something that we will dive into separately soon. Firing up AMD GPU clock we had no problems benching at 760MHz/1800MHz DDR which actually put us slightly ahead of the HD 2900 XT in 3DMark06. Hopefully this translates over to real world gaming - we'll have to investigate this more later.

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.

Straight away we can see that the cards perform quite close together in 3DMark05. Let's see what happens when we put a bit more strain on the card.