Testbed and Methods

With the review of the Radeon HD 2900 XT we decided to use our new Intel Core 2 Duo-based system with Windows Vista OS. The configuration of our new testbed is as follows:

• Intel Core 2 Extreme E6800 processor at 3.0GHz with 1333MHz processor system bus speed
• Asustek Computer P5N32-E SLI Plus mainboard (Nvidia nForce 680i SLI chipset)
• Corsair DDR2 1066MHz memory (2x1GB)
• Maxtor MaXLine III 7B250S0 (Serial ATA-150, 16MB buffer)
• Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 sound card
• Enermax Galaxy DXX EGX1000EWL 1000W power supply
• Dell 3007WFP monitor (30", 2560x1600 max display resolution)
• Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit
• ATI Catalyst HD2900_vista_8-37-4-070419a-046507E for the Radeon HD 2900 XT
• ATI Catalyst 7.4 for the Radeon X1000
• Nvidia ForceWare 158.19

Since we believe that the use of tri-linear and anisotropic filtering optimizations is not justified in this case, the graphics card drivers were set up in standard way to provide the highest possible quality of texture filtering.

ATI Catalyst:

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

Nvidia ForceWare:

• Texture Filtering: High quality
• Vertical sync: Off
• Trilinear optimization: Off
• Anisotropic optimization: Off
• Anisotropic sample optimization: Off
• Gamma correct antialiasing: On
• Transparency antialiasing: On (multi-sampling)
• Other settings: by default

For our tests we used the following games and benchmarks:

First-Person 3D Shooters

• Battlefield 2142
• Call of Juarez
• Far Cry
• Far Cry HDR
• F.E.A.R. Extraction Point
• Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
• Half-Life 2: Episode One
• Prey
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

Third-Person 3D Shooters

• Hitman: Blood Money
• Tomb Raider: Legend
• Splinter Cell: Double Agent

RPG

• Gothic 3
• Neverwinter Nights 2
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Simulators

• X3: Reunion

Strategies

• Command & Conquer 3
• Company of Heroes
• Supreme Commander

Synthetic Benchmarks

• Futuremark 3DMark05
• Futuremark 3DMark06
• Rydermark
• SPECViewperf 9.0.3