The Testing System

All the tests were run on a Pentium 4 system, with an 800 mhz FSB Intel Springdale Motherboard, accompanied by 1 Gigabyte of Kingmax Dual DDR400, kindly supplied by Overclock.co.uk.

Windows XP SP1 was used for testing, with Direct X 9.0b, Fraps v2.0 build 1787, 3dmark 2001 SE build 330, 3dmark 2003 PRO build 340, and Aquamark 3.0.

The Catalyst 3.9 drivers were used for the ATI cards, and the ForceWare 52.16 drivers for the Nvidia cards. Unless otherwise noted, all tests were run with the CPU at 3.2 ghz, with an 800mhz FSB. Tests run at 1.6 ghz were also run with an 800mhz FSB, the only change being the multiplier.

The Benchmarks

• 3dMark 2001 SE
• 3dMark 2003
• AquaMark 3.0
• Unreal Tournament 2003
• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
• Serious Sam the Second Encounter

We have tried to get a range of benchmarks to test the cards in different scenarios. Despite the attempts to cheat by nVidia, we still feel 3dMark is a useful program and tallys with our results from the other benchmarks. We are of course using the latest build of 3dmark and drivers that don't allow cheating.

We feel 3dMark is a very good general summary of a cards performance so we have used it as the basis for our "bang for buck" rating. This is quite simply, the 3dmark divided by the price to give the number of 3d marks per pound.

<< Back | 1 | | 2 | | 3 | | 4 | | 5 | | 6 | | 7 | | 8 | | 9 | | 10 | Next >>