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)

Graphics Card(s): GECUBE HD 3850 OC Edition X-Turbo III(Supplied by Bronet )

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 7.11, Forceware 169.06

With the single 3850 OC Edition from GECUBE in hand we thought we would throw in the stock clocked 8800GT from ASUS, but more importantly the Crossfire configuration using two 3850 OC Editions from GECUBE to see what going to a second card does for us.

As usual we will be running a number of synthetic and real world benchmarks while testing on both Windows XP and Windows Vista for some Direct X 10 fun.

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 the less intensive 3DMark05 we can see there isn't a lot of difference between the cards at the lower resolution, though when we climb up there you see them separate a bit more.