Review: Stuart "Veridian3" Davidson
Editor/Design: Allan "Zardon" Campbell

 

Test Systems:

Amd Opteron 146 (2050mhz)
ASUS SK8V
4x512mb ddr266(dual channel) / 1x 512mb ddr266 (Samsung) CL 2.5
1x512mb ddr333 CL 2.5 Supplied by and thanks to Crucial - visit them here http://www.crucial.com/uk
Thermaltake Silentboost K8
Nvidia Geforce FX 5950 Ultra 256mb
Sapphire Radeon 9800 XT 256mb
IBM Deskstar 120 GXP 40GB 7200rpm Hard Drive
Sony CRX300E DVD/CDRW
Sony Floppy Drive
Mercury 400W PSU
AOC 19” 9GLR CRT

AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (Barton) @ 3200+
ABIT NF7-S V2.0
512MB of ddr400 (2x256mb) Dual Channel (crucial) CL 3
Coolermaster Aero 7 Lite
Nvidia Geforce FX 5950 Ultra 256mb
IBM Deskstar 120 GXP 40GB 7200rpm Hard Drive
Sony CRX300E DVD/CDRW
Sony Floppy Drive
Mercury 400W PSU
AOC 19” 9GLR CRT

Software
Windows SP1a
Direct X 9.0b
Detonator 52.16 WHQL
Catalyst 3.9 WHQL
Via Hyperion Driver 4.51
Nforce Driver 3.13
3d Mark 2001SE
Nbench 3
Aquamark 3
Unreal Tournament 2003
PC Mark 2002
PC Mark 04

 

 

The test system was built from scratch, a format of the hard drive was performed (NTFS) and then Windows XP was installed. Following the completion of the install the N-force or Hyperion drivers were installed. The only updates applied were SP1a and Direct X 9.0b. Following a reboot the Catalyst 3.9 or Detonator 52.16 drivers were installed. Next the benchmarking tools were installed and finally the hard drive was de-fragmented.
For all tests the ATI and Nvidia drivers were set to best image quality.

Good Benchmarking Practice:
Each benchmark was performed 3 times and the middle result for each resolution/setting is shown in the tables which follow. After changing any Anti-Aliasing (AA) or Anisotropic Filtering (AF) setting and before a benchmark was run the system was rebooted. All games/applications had their latest patches applied.

 

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