Testbed and Methods

We rolled out our standard testbed for this session. The system was configured like that:

• Athlon 64 3400+ CPU (Socket 754, 2.20GHz, 1MB L1 cache);
• ASUS K8V Deluxe mainboard;
• OCZ PC-3200 Platinum EB DDR SDRAM (2x512MB, CL2.5-3-2-8);
• Seagate 7200.7 HDD (SerialATA-150, 8MB buffer);
• Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 audio card;
• Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2, DirectX 9.0с;
• ATI CATALYST 4.8, NVIDIA ForceWare 61.77.

And here’s the list of games and applications we use for benchmarking purposes:

First Person 3D Shooters:

• Call of Duty;
• Doom 3;
• Unreal Tournament 2004;
• Far Cry;
• Halo: Combat Evolved;
• Painkiller;
• Counter Strike: Source;
• Highly Anticipated DX9 Game 1;
• Highly Anticipated DX9 Game 2.

Third Person 3D Shooters:

• Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow;
• Prince of Persia: Sands of Time;
• Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne.

Simulators:

• IL-2 Sturmovik: Aces in the Sky;
• Lock On;
• Colin McRae Rally 04;

Strategy:

• Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour;
• Perimeter.

Semi-synthetic Benchmarks:

• Aquamark3.

Synthetic Benchmarks:

• Futuremark 3DMark03 build 340.

In each particular case we selected the best possible graphics quality settings, the same for graphics cards on ATI’s and NVIDIA’s chips.

Performance in First Person 3D Shooters

Call of Duty

Call of Duty isn’t a complex game by today’s standards, so don’t be surprised at the three-digit fps rates the modern top-end graphics cards have here. The performance of the ASUS AX800 XT matches the GeForce 6800 Ultra, save for 1024x768 resolution. Overclocking is of a very small effect here.

Like in the pure speed mode, the results in 1024x768 resolution look rather strange, but everything returns to the norm since 1280x1024: the efficient algorithms of working with the graphics memory make the ASUS AX800 XT the leader. Overclocking is more rewarding in this mode, as the memory load is higher.