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): GIGABYTE X48-DQ6 (Supplied by GIGABYTE) Memory: 2 X 1GB Kingston PC6400 DDR-2 3-3-3-10 (KHX6400D2ULK2/2G) (Supplied by Kingston) Hard Disk(s): Seagate 250GB 7200RPM SATA-2 7200.10 (Supplied by Seagate) Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2, Windows Vista Drivers: Catalyst 8.1, Forceware 174.11 (9600GT Win XP), Forceware 171.16 (9600GT Win Vista)
Today we’ll be comparing the ZOTAC 9600GT AMP! Edition against a stock clocked HD 3870 and a stock clocked 8800GT to see how its clocks fair. We’re continuing to use our new beefed up test bed with a whole lot of new games, so let’s not delay and get stuck straight into it!
3DMark06 is the very latest version of the “Gamers Benchmark” from FutureMark. The newest version of 3DMark expands on the tests in 3DMark05 by adding graphical effects using Shader Model 3.0 and HDR (High Dynamic Range lighting) which will push even the best DX9 graphics cards to the extremes.
3DMark06 also focuses on not just the GPU but the CPU using the AGEIA PhysX software physics library to effectively test single and Dual Core processors.
We can see the heavily overclocked ZOTAC offering manages to keep right on the tail of the HD 3870 at the higher resolutions, while it just beats it out at the lower.
