Testbed and Methods

First, let me say a few words about the hardware that we used during this test session. All graphics cards were benchmarked in a closed system case with the following configuration:

• Mainboard:ASUS P6T Deluxe (Intel X58 Express), LGA 1366, BIOS 1606;
• CPU: Intel Core i7-920, 2.67 GHz, 1.25 V, L2 4 x 256 KB, L3 8 MB (Bloomfield, C0);
• CPU cooler: ThermoLab BARAM (2 Noiseblocker fans at 1100 RPM);
• Thermal interface: Arctic Silver 5;
• System memory: DDR3 PC3-12800 3 x 2GB OCZ Platinum Low-Voltage Triple Channel (Spec: 1600 MHz / 7-7-7-24 / 1.65 V);
• Disk subsystem: Western Digital VelociRaptor (300GB, SATA-II, 10000 RPM, 16MB cache, NCQ) inside Scythe Quiet Drive 3.5” HDD silencer and cooler;
• Backup HDD: Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS (SATA-II, 1000 GB, 5400 RPM, 32 MB, NCQ);
• Optical drive: Samsung SH-S183L DVD-burner;
• System case: Antec Twelve Hundred (front panel: two Noiseblocker NB-Multiframe S-Series MF12-S1 fans at 820 RPM and Scythe Gentle Typhoon fan at 840 RPM; back panel: two Scythe SlipStream 120 fans at 840 RPM; top panel: standard 200 mm fan at 400 RPM);
• Control and monitoring panel: Zalman ZM-MFC2
• Power supply: Zalman ZM1000-HP 1000 W (with a default 140 mm fan).

To minimize the platform influence on the performance of the tested graphics cards I overclocked our 45 nm quad-core CPU with the multiplier set at 21x and “Load-Line Calibration” enabled to 4.01GHz. The processor Vcore was increased to 1.36875V in the mainboard BIOS:

The system memory worked at 1527MHz frequency with 7-7-7-14_1T timings and 1.62V voltage:

All other parameters available in the mainboard BIOS and connected with CPU or memory overclocking remained unchanged (set to Auto).

Now let’s move on to software and benchmarking tools that we used. All tests were performed under Windows 7 x64 RTM with the following drivers:

• Intel Chipset Drivers 9.1.1.1019 for the mainboard chipset;
• DirectX End-User Runtimes from August 2009;
• Catalyst 9.8 graphics card drivers.

The graphics cards were tested in three resolutions: 1280x1024, widescreen 1680x1050 and1920x1200. The tests were performed in two image quality modes: “High Quality” without any image quality enhancements and “HQ+ AF16x+AA4/8x” with enabled 16x anisotropic filtering and 4x full screen anti-aliasing (or 8x FSAA if the average framerate was high enough for comfortable gaming experience). We enabled anisotropic filtering and full-screen anti-aliasing from the game settings. If there corresponding options were missing, we changed these settings in the Catalyst Control Panel. Vertical sync was always off (in CCC).

All games were reinstalled fresh under the new operating system and updated with the latest patches available at the time of tests. So, the complete list of test applications includes the two popular synthetic benchmarks and 14 games of various genres:

• 3DMark 2006 (Direct3D 9/10) – build 1.1.0, default settings;
• 3DMark Vantage (Direct3D 10) – v1.0.2.1, Performance profile (basic tests only);
• World in Conflict (Direct3D 10) – version 1.0.1.0 (b34), “Very High” graphics quality profile, UI texture quality = Compressed; Water reflection size = 512, other settings – by default;
• Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (OpenGL 2.0) – version 1.5, highest graphics quality settings, d5 demo on the Salvage level, Finland;
• Unreal Tournament 3 (Direct3D 9) – version 2.1, highest graphics quality settings (level 5), Motion Blur and Hardware Physics enabled, a FlyBy of the “DM-ShangriLa” map (two consecutive cycles) using HardwareOC UT3 Bench v1.5.0.0;
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky (Direct3D 10.1) – game version 1.5.10, Improved Full DX10 Lighting profile plus 16x anisotropic filtering and other maximum graphics quality settings, my own s04 demo record (a triple run of the test) on the first gaming level;
• Crysis (Direct3D 10) – game version 1.2.1, “High” settings profile (not “Very High”), two runs of a built-in graphics card benchmark;
• Far Cry 2 (Direct3D 10) – version 1.03, Ultra High settings profile, two runs of the Ranch Small test from Far Cry 2 Benchmark Tool (v1.0.0.1);
• Left 4 Dead (Direct3D 9) – version 1.0.1.4 b3939, maximum quality, new d6 demo (two runs) on “Lighthouse” map in “Survival” game mode;
• Lost Planet: Colonies (Direct3D 10) – version 1.0, Maximum Quality settings, DX10 HDR Rendering, integrated benchmark including two scenes, but the results are provided from the first scene only (ARENA 1);
• Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason (Direct3D 10.1) – version 1.0.2, shader model 4.0, high image quality settings, “Caustic” enabled, tested in own “d3” demo at “11. Fear” level;
• Call of Duty 5: World at War (Direct3D 9) – version 1.3.1080, graphics and textures are set at “Extra” level, d2 demo on “Dome” level;
• Stormrise (Direct3D 10.1) – version 1.0.0.0, maximum effects and shadows quality, Ambient Occlusion disabled, two runs of the “$mn_sp05” mission demo scene;
• Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. (Direct3D 10.1) – version 1.02, maximum graphics quality settings; HDR, DOF and Ambient Occlusion enabled, two runs of the built-in benchmark;
• Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood (Direct3D 10.1) – version 1.0.0.0, maximum graphics quality settings, Shadow map size = 1024, 100-second demo in the beginning of “miners Massacre” level;
• Resident Evil 5 bench (Direct3D 10.1) – variable benchmark with maximum graphics quality settings without motion blur, we took AVG values from the third scene for further analysis, because it was the most resource hungry.

Here I’d like to add that if the game allowed recording the minimal fps readings, they were also added to the charts. We ran each game test or benchmark twice and took the best result for the diagrams, but only if the difference between them didn’t exceed 1%. If it did exceed 1%, we ran the tests at least one more time to achieve repeatability of results.

Now let’s talk about the actual benchmarks.