Testbed and Methods
For our performance tests we put together the following testbed:
- Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor (3.0GHz, FSB 333MHz x 9);
- DFI LANParty UT ICFX3200-T2R/G (ATI CrossFire Xpress 3200 chipset) for ATI Radeon graphics cards;
- Asus P5N32-E SLI mainboard (Nvidia nForce 680i SLI chipset) for Nvidia GeForce graphics cards;
- Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C5 (2x1GB, 1066MHz, 5-5-5-15, 2T);
- Maxtor MaXLine III 7B250S0 HDD (250GB, Serial ATA-150, 16MB buffer);
- Enermax Galaxy DXX EGX1000EWL 1000W power supply;
- Dell 3007WFP monitor (30", 2560x1600@60Hz max display resolution);
- Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit;
- Nvidia ForceWare 169.25 WHQL for GeForce 8800
- Nvidia ForceWare 174.74 WHQL for GeForce 9800/9600
- ATI Catalyst 8.5 for Radeon HD
According to our testing methodology, the drivers were set up to provide the highest possible quality of texture filtering and to minimize the effect of software optimizations used by default by both: AMD/ATI and Nvidia. Also, to ensure maximum image quality, we enabled transparent texture filtering - Adaptive Anti-Aliasing/Multi-sampling for ATI Catalyst and Antialiasing – Transparency: Multisampling for Nvidia ForceWare. As a result, our ATI and Nvidia driver settings looked as follows:
ATI Catalyst:
- Catalyst A.I.: Standard
- Mipmap Detail Level: High Quality
- High Quality AF: On
- Wait for vertical refresh: Always Off
- Enable Adaptive Anti-Aliasing: On/Quality
- Method: Multi-sampling
- Temporal Anti-Aliasing: Off
- Other settings: default
Nvidia ForceWare:
- Texture filtering - Quality: High quality
- Texture filtering - Trilinear optimization: Off
- Texture filtering – Anisotropic sample optimization: Off
- Vertical sync: Force off
- Antialiasing - Gamma correction: On
- Antialiasing - Transparency: Multisampling
- Other settings: default
For our tests we used the following games and synthetic benchmarks:
First-Person 3D Shooters
- Battlefield 2142
- Bioshock
- Call of Juarez
- Call of Duty 4
- Crysis
- Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
- Half-Life 2: Episode Two
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
Third-Person 3D Shooters
- Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
- Tomb Raider: Legend
RPG
- Hellgate: London
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Strategies
- Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
- Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
- World in Conflict
Synthetic Benchmarks
- Futuremark 3DMark05
- Futuremark 3DMark06
We selected the highest possible level of detail in each game using standard tools provided by the game itself from the gaming menu. The games configuration files weren’t modified in any way. The only exception was Enemy Territory: Quake Wars game where we disabled the built-in fps rate limitation locked at 30fps. Games supporting DirectX 10 were tested in this particular mode.
Besides ASUS EN9600GT Top 512MB we have also included the following graphics accelerators to participate in our test session:
- Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT (G94, 650/1625/1800MHz, 64sp, 32tmu, 16rop, 256-bit, 512MB GDDR3)
- Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX (G92, 675/1688/2200MHz, 128sp, 32tmu, 16rop, 256-bit, 512MB GDDR3)
- Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB (G92, 600/1500/1800MHz, 112sp, 28tmu, 16rop, 256-bit, 512MB GDDR3)
- ATI Radeon HD 3870 (RV670, 775/2250MHz, 320sp, 16tmu, 16rop, 256-bit, 512MB GDDR4
The tests were performed in the following resolutions: 1280x1024/960, 1600x1200 and 1920x1200. If the game didn’t support 16:10 display format, we set the last resolution to 1920x1440. We used “eye candy” mode everywhere, where it was possible without disabling the HDR/Shader Model 3.0/Shader Model 4.0. Namely, we ran the tests with enabled anisotropic filtering 16x as well as MSAA 4x antialiasing. We enabled them from the game’s menu. If this was not possible, we forced them using the appropriate driver settings of ATI Catalyst and Nvidia ForceWare drivers.
Performance was measured with the games’ own tools and the original demos were recorded if possible. Otherwise, the performance was measured manually with Fraps utility version 2.9.4. We measured not only the average speed, but also the minimum speed of the cards where possible.
