Test setup

Intel Core 2 Duo 6700E running at default 2.66Ghz
ASRock 775Dual-VSTA
2Gb DDR 400Mhz (2,5-4-4-9)
Hitachi Deskstar HD (160 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II)
NEC DVD-RW ND-3520AW
LC Power LC6550 - 550W
Dell 2407WFP

F.E.A.R.
G.R.A.W
Half Life 2 – Ep1
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
Tomb Raider Legend
Oblivion
PowerDVD 7

Driver set used: Official Catalyst 7.1 drivers

For testing purposes the operating system was installed from scratch. The file system used was NTFS and the drive was defragmented prior to all tests. Windows was fully updated (security updates) and the games/applications were running with both CPU cores enabled.

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 games/applications had their latest patches applied. As with all reviews on Driver Heaven we aim to give you the benchmark figures you need, which means for every given card we run the benchmarks at the resolution the card is aimed at – with eye candy maxed.