Here is the software we used to benchmark this
card (all games/benchmark software updated to their
latest versions):
• 3D Mark 2005
• Quake 4
• F.E.A.R
• NBA Live 2006
• Half Life 2 – Lost coast
• Need for Speed – Most wanted
A clean system was created for this test. First
the operating system was installed, fully patched,
installed .NET Framework 1.1 and 2.0 and then the
appropriate drivers for the chipset and the graphics
card. For the games we used the appropriate in-game
settings for Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic filtering,
where they exist – otherwise we forced the
settings from the Catalyst Control Center. All games
were benchmarked using FRAPS and in-built timedemo
functions, unless otherwise noted. To make sure
we got it right, each benchmarking session was run
three times, to make sure we get consistent results.
Onboard sound was enabled for all tests, to better
simulate the kind of performance an ordinary user
would experience.
We chose to benchmark in three resolutions: 1024x768,
1280x960 and 1600x1200, simply because the games
we used limited us to 1600x1200 as the highest resolution
we could use. For Lost Coast, we also benchmarked
at 1920x1200 since the option was available. The
Anti-Aliasing/Anisotropic filtering combinations
we used in most cases were 0xAA/0xAF, 4xAA/8xAF
and 6xAA/16xAF. V-Sync was turned to Always Off,
and we enabled the “Enable Triple Buffering”
setting – all other settings were left in
their default state.
