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 7.9, Forceware 162.18 (8800GTS) and Forceware 169.01 (8800GT)

Included in the lineup of cards we have from NVIDIA is the 8800GTS 320MB, and from the AMD end we have both the HD 2900 PRO which really impressed us with its high performance and decent looking price along with the HD 2900 XT. All are very good cards and all compete in that $300 - $500 AUD price bracket.

We ventured a bit into overclocking but running off limited time at the moment we didn't get to spend as much time as we would have liked. With that said though, the card is already overclocked so we didn't expect too much more. We managed to hit 680MHz on the core which is 80MHz from default but only 20MHz up from the MSI pre overclock. The memory also managed to jump just over 100MHz DDR to 2010MHz DDR. We did a quick 3DMark06 run at default which resulted in only another 350 marks.

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.

Straight away we can see the 8800GT pull ahead of the pack including the HD 2900 XT, but can it continue into the more intensive benchmarks.