Test System

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo X6800 @ 2.93 GHz
Motherboard: Asus P5N-E SLI
Audio: Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1
Memory: 2 x 1 GB OCZ Gold 800Mhz DDR2 memory
Graphics cards: HIS HD3850 IceQ3 Turbo X
Drivers: ATI Catalyst 8.1
Operating system used: Windows Vista Ultimate, fully updated
Bioshock
Oblivion
Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance
Half Life 2: Episode 2
Unreal Tournament 3
Crysis
Lost Planet

The test system was built from scratch, a format of the hard drive was performed (NTFS) and then Windows Vista was installed. Following the completion of the installations, the AMD drivers were installed. All windows updates were then installed as were the latest builds of the benchmarking tools. Finally, the hard drive was de-fragmented. For each test, the AMD drivers were set to default quality/optimizations (unless otherwise stated).

Good Benchmarking Practice:
Where possible, each benchmark was performed 3 times and the median result for each resolution/setting is shown in the tables that will follow. All applications had their latest patches applied and all hardware features the latest BIOS/Firmware. Driver Heaven doesn't use benchmark scripts. We play the games for long periods of time on various levels and report any unusual findings we see. Then we record with FRAPS across several in game levels recording the averages. This is real world testing and is just how you guys will experience the game. Occasionally we might throw in a time demo as a further comparison, but we will note it.