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 7.10, Forceware 169.01

While we have thrown in the HD 2900 PRO and HD 2900 XT for good measure, what we're really looking at here today is the HD 2900 XT 1GB GDDR4 against the new 8800GT and 3870.

With the second hand value of the HD 2900 XT dropping so much, it's possible that this is the best bargain video card of the moment.

With the standard line-up of games and operating systems, let's move forward.

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 performance difference between the 8800GT and the older HD 2900 XT 1GB isn't all that great. We see that it's actually slightly ahead of the stock clocked 3870.