Test Setup

Crucial DDR2-1000 5-5-5-15
OCZ DDR2-800 4-4-4-15
Patriot DDR2-1066 5-5-5-9

MSI Geforce 8600 GTS OC (gaming/video)
Asus Geforce 8800 GTX (Synthetic/Photoshop/Audio conversion)
Intel Core2 QX6700
Abit IN9 32X-MAX
OCZ DDR2-800 @ 4-4-4-12
Enermax Galaxy 850w
Benq 16x DVD Writer
LG GBW-H10N Blu-Ray Writer
Xbox 360 HD-DVD Drive
Auzentech X-Meridian 7.1 Soundcard
Asetek Vapochill
Windows Vista Ultimate
Forceware 158.14
DirectX 9.0c/DirextX10
Dark Messiah: Might and Magic
Oblivion
Photoshop CS2
PCMark05
Sisoft Sandra
CDDA
MyDVD
WinDVD 8

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 Nvidia 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 Nvidia 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.