Testbed and Methods

We tested the ASUS Extreme N7800GTX TOP/2DHTV graphics card on the following testbed:

• AMD Athlon 64 4000+ CPU (2.40GHz, 1MB L2 cache)
• ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe mainboard (NVIDIA nForce4 SLI chipset)
• OCZ PC3200 Platinum EL DDR SDRAM (2 x 1GB, CL2-3-2-5)
• Samsung SpinPoint SP1213C (Serial ATA-150, 8MB buffer)
• Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 sound card
• Cooler Master Real Power 450 power supply (RS-450-ACLY, 450W)
• Dell P1130 and Dell P1110 monitors (21”, 1800x1440@75Hz max display mode)
• Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2 with DirectX 9.0c
• NVIDIA ForceWare 78.01 and ATI Catalyst 8.173.1-050921a-026915E drivers

We set up the ATI and NVIDIA drivers in the following way:

ATI CATALYST:

• CATALYST A.I.: Standard
• Mipmap Detail Level: Quality
• Wait for vertical refresh: Always off
• Adaptive antialiasing: Off
• Temporal antialiasing: Off
• Quality AF: Off
• Other settings: default

NVIDIA ForceWare 78.01:

• Image Settings: Quality
• Vertical sync: Off
• Trilinear optimization: On
• Anisotropic mip filter optimization: Off
• Anisotropic sample optimization: On
• Gamma correct antialiasing: On (for GeForce 7 only)
• Transparency antialiasing: Off (for GeForce 7 only)
• Other settings: default

We select the highest graphics quality settings in each game, identical for graphics cards from ATI and NVIDIA. If possible, we use the games’ integrated benchmarking tools (to record and reproduce a demo and measure the reproduction speed in frames per second). Otherwise we measure the frame rate with the FRAPS utility. If it is possible, we measure minimal as well as average fps rates to give you a full picture of performance.

We turn on 4x full-screen antialiasing and 16x anisotropic filtering in the “eye candy” test mode from the game’s own menu if possible. Otherwise we force the necessary mode from the driver. We didn’t test the “eye candy” mode if a game engine didn’t support FSAA.

Besides the ASUS Extreme N7800GTX TOP/2DHTV, the following graphics cards took part in this test session:

• GeForce 7800 GTX (G70, 430/1200MHz, 24p, 8v, 256-bit, 256MB)
  for details see our article called NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX: Monstrous Gaming Performance Unleashed
• GeForce 7800 GT (G70, 400/1000MHz, 20pp, 7vp, 256-bit, 256MB)
  for details see our article called NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT: Full-Throttle Graphics for $449
• GeForce 6800 Ultra (NV45, 425/1100MHz, 16pp, 6vp, 256-bit, 256MB)
  for details see our article called NVIDIA Multi-GPU SLI Technology: New Approach to Old Ideas
• RADEON X1800 XT (R520, 625/1500MHz, 16pp, 8vp, 256-bit, 512MB)
  for details see our article called ATI RADEON X1800 XT and XL Performance: Crushing NVIDIA's 7800? RADEON X1800 XL (R520, 500/1000MHz, 16pp, 8vp, 256-bit, 256MB)
  for details see our article called ATI RADEON X1800 XT and XL Performance: Crushing NVIDIA's 7800?
• RADEON X850 XT Platinum Edition (R480, 540/1180MHz, 16pp, 6vp, 256-bit, 256MB)
  for details see our article called ATI RADEON X850 Platinum Edition: Good Things Go Better

The following games and benchmarks were used:

First Person 3D Shooters:

• Battlefield 2
• The Chronicles of Riddick
• Doom 3
• Far Cry
• F.E.A.R. Multiplayer Demo
• Half-Life 2
• Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell
• Pariah
• Project: Snowblind
• Unreal Tournament 2004

Third Person 3D Shooters:

• Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
• Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

Simulators:

• Colin McRae Rally 2005
• Pacific Fighters
• Lock On: Modern Air Combat

Strategies:

• Perimeter
• Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War

Semi-synthetic Benchmarks:

• Aquamark3
• Final Fantasy XI Official Benchmark 3

Synthetic Benchmarks:

• Futuremark 3DMark03, build 360
• Futuremark 3DMark05, build 120