Test System

Visiontek Radeon HD 2600XT 256Mb
Asus  Geforce 8600 GT 256Mb

Asus P5K3 Deluxe
Intel QX6850 (3.0Ghz – 1333fsb)
Enermax Galaxy 850w
Benq 16x DVD Writer
LG GBW-H10N Blu-Ray Writer
Xbox 360 HD-DVD Drive
Auzentech X-Meridian 7.1 Soundcard
Arctic Cooling MX-2 Paste
Arctic Cooling Freezer
Windows Vista Ultimate
Forceware 169.25
Catalyst 7.11
DirectX 9.0c/DirextX10
DiRT
Bioshock
Half-Life 2: Episode 2
Bioshock
Tiger Woods 08
Oblivion
Supreme Commander
PowerDVD Ultra

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 installation, the video 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 video 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.