|
BFG GeForce 7900 GTX OC 512MB PCI-E
Test Setup
We will be using seven popular games for benchmarking: Half-Life 2, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Quake 4, X3: Reunion (demo), Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, F.E.A.R. - First Encounter Assault Recon, and Need for Speed Most Wanted. These games span across multiple genres and vary greatly in their use of shader effects (not to mention they do a great job of stressing out video cards) so our testing should give you a very clear picture of whether or not a particular card is right for you. Just for kicks, we also ran each card through 3DMark '06 - not because we care how many 3DMarks a particular card gets, but because you might. I want to make it clear that we won't be counting the 3DMark scores in our overall evaluation; they are just presented in case you want to see them. The system we are using for benchmarking consists of an ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 motherboard which utilizes the nForce4 chipset. An AMD Athlon64 FX-55 is used along with 2 GB of Corsair PC-3200 XMS XL Pro memory running in dual channel mode with 2-2-2-5 timings. Every component of the system is at stock or default speeds set by the manufacturer. Windows XP was installed onto a freshly formatted Seagate NearLine 500GB SATA hard drive connected via on-chip SATA. All the latest Windows Updates were downloaded and installed. The latest video drivers at the time of testing were installed - Catalyst beta 8.223 certified drivers for the ATI X1800 GTO, Catalyst 6.2 for the other ATI cards, Forceware 84.21 for the XFX 7900 GT XXX and XFX 7600 GT XXX, and Forceware 81.98 drivers for the other NVIDIA cards. In the video card control panel V-SYNC was disabled and the cards were set to "quality" over "performance." For the ATI cards that means "Texture Preference" and "Mipmap Detail Level" were both set to "High Quality" while Anti Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering were custom for each test. For NVIDIA cards, the "Image Settings" slider was set to "High Quality." V-Sync was disabled for all testing. Everything else was left to the default settings. Default quality levels for AA and AF were used as opposed to Transparency AA, High Quality AF! To ensure the best possible results, we run each benchmark three times for each test and average the results. When possible, we benchmark a recorded timedemo, which prints the average FPS (frames per second) when finished running. Not all games allow you to record a timedemo, though, so testing may differ for some games. The details for how a specific benchmark was run can be found on the corresponding benchmark page. Test Computer: ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 Motherboard (Donated by Directron.com) AMD Athlon64 FX-55 2 GB Corsair TwinX PC-3200 XMS XL Pro Series (Dual Channels @ 2-2-2-5) Seagate NearLine 500GB SATA Hard Drive (Donated by Seagate) Enermax Liberty 620W SLI Certified Power Supply (Donated by Enermax) Windows XP Professional SP2 w/ DirectX 9.0c and latest updates (Donated by Microsoft) When analyzing the performance graphs on the following pages, I will sometimes refer to settings that offer the best gaming experience. To me, a good gaming experience offers the right mixture of speed and image quality as well as smooth gameplay. Playing a game at 50 FPS with smooth edges and crisp textures would offer a better overall gaming experience than playing at 100 FPS with "jaggies,' noticeable texture filtering and bogging-down in certain parts of the map. Personally, I think 40-50 FPS generally allows for a smooth experience and my comments will stem from that belief. Your opinions may differ. Of course, certain game genres will let you enjoy the gameplay with 20+ FPS, but we'll talk about that where it applies.
Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: The Card & Bundle Page 3: Test Setup Page 4: Benchmarks: Half-Life 2 Page 5: Benchmarks: Splinter Cell Chaos Theory Page 6: Benchmarks: Quake 4 Page 7: Benchmarks: X3 Reunion Demo Page 8: Benchmarks: Chronicles of Riddick Page 9: Benchmarks: F.E.A.R. Page 10: Benchmarks: Need for Speed Most Wanted Page 11: Benchmarks: 3DMark '06 Page 12: Overclocking & Stability Page 13: Performance Summary Page 14: Conclusion 
Related Reviews Video Cards September 23, 2009
Video Cards June 25, 2009
Video Cards June 8, 2009
Video Cards April 6, 2009
Add Comment
0 User Comments Add Comment To add a comment without being a member, you may omit the password field, but you must enter your name (or nickname) along with your comment. * Denotes required fields. |
Recent Articles Editorials August 27, 2009
Editorials August 18, 2009
Editorials March 3, 2009
Editorials February 12, 2009
Recent News VICE Nov. 20, 2009 - 7:17 pm
Wired Nov. 20, 2009 - 7:07 pm
Engadget Nov. 20, 2009 - 6:58 pm
Telegraph.co.uk Nov. 20, 2009 - 6:48 pm
BBC Nov. 20, 2009 - 6:38 pm
Destructoid Nov. 18, 2009 - 11:55 pm
Wired Nov. 16, 2009 - 11:56 pm
Ultimate Typing Championship Nov. 16, 2009 - 11:42 pm
|
|||||||||||||||
