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 8.1 and Forceware 169.06

We've got the usual line-up of games and cards in use today so let's just get straight into it. We will be coming back with 2560 x 1600 sooner rather than later, but we want to test some Crossfire 3870 for that one.

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.

We can see on an older benchmark like 3DMark05 that not only does the new X2 variation of the 3870 not offer leaps and bounds in performance, but that most of the cards here are quite bunched together across the board.