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 SP1 Drivers: Catalyst 8.3, Forceware 174.53 (9 Series), Forceware 169.25 (8 Series)
As for comparison we found ourselves with the VViKOO 9600GT Turbo which is one of the higher overclocked 9600GT offerings along with an overclocked 8800GT and a stock clocked HD 3870 from ASUS. Let’s see how we go with this stock clocked 9600GT.
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.
Straight away we can see the stock clocked 9600GT from Albatron sit at the back of the pack. It’s only slightly behind the overclocked VViKOO which manages to see its best gains at the higher resolution.
