Test System Setup

Processor(s): Intel i7 920 @ 3.8GHz (190MHz x 20)

Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P (Supplied by Noctua)

Motherboard(s): GIGABYTE EX58-UD5 (Supplied by GIGABYTE)

Memory: 3 X 2GB OCZ Technology PC-12800 DDR-3 8-8-8-24 (OCZ3G1600LV6GK)

Hard Disk(s): Western Digital 300GB Velicorapter (Supplied by Western Digital)

Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2, Windows Vista SP1 64-Bit

Drivers: ForceWare 182.06, Catalyst 9.2

Today we'll be taking the time to see how the GTX 260+ from Galaxy we have here goes up against another Galaxy card, the GTS 250 and the current top single GPU card from ATI, the HD 4870, which is due to be replaced by the HD 4890 very soon.

Below our game benchmarks I've added something new; it's going to be a bit of a trial to see how it goes. What we've done is add the "Optimum Setup" and this will tell you with our testbed and the card we're using what the best configuration for the game we are testing would be. For example, if we have a game that gets a 32 FPS minimum at 1920 x 1200 and a 26 FPS minimum at 2560 x 1600, the "Optimum Setup" would be 1920 x 1200 with the settings that we're using.

3DMark Vantage

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.1

Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com

Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmarkvantage/

Buy It Here

3DMark Vantage is the new industry standard PC gaming performance benchmark from Futuremark, newly designed for Windows Vista and DirectX10. It includes two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, several new feature tests, and support for the latest hardware.

3DMark Vantage is based on a completely new rendering engine, developed specifically to take full advantage of DirectX10, the new graphics API from Microsoft.

It's no real surprise that the performance of the GTX 260+ comes out ahead under 3DMark Vantage.