Testbeds and Methods

We will talk more about the Source engine, its conceptions and details, when the Half-Life 2 is released, but now let us try to figure out what graphics card you will need for the Counter Strike: Source. For our benchmarking we used two computers: with AGP 8x interface and with PCI Express x16 interface for graphics cards configured as follows:

Testbed 1:

• Athlon 64 3200+ CPU (2.00GHz, 1MB L2 cache);
• ASUS K8V Deluxe mainboard;
• OCZ PC-3200 Platinum EB DDR SDRAM (2x512MB, CL2.5-3-2-8);
• Samsung SpinPoint SP0812C HDD (Serial ATA-150, 8MB buffer);
• Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 sound card.

Testbed 2:

• Intel Pentium 4 560 CPU (Socket 775, 3.60GHz, 1MB L2 cache);
• Intel Desktop Board D925CXC;
• 1GB DDR2 PC2-4300 (533MHz) SDRAM (Micron Technology, 2x512MB);
• Samsung SpinPoint SP0812C HDD (Serial ATA-150, 8MB buffer);
• Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 sound card.

Software:

• Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2, DirectX 9.0c;
• ATI CATALYST 8-07-018211e;
• NVIDIA ForceWare 66.81.

We did not disable any texture filtration optimization from NVIDIA’s or ATI’s drivers. Please keep in mind that these drivers are on the beta stage of testing by appropriate developers. We would like to point out that we do not typically test the hardware using beta or alpha drivers. However, NVIDIA’s official drivers at press time were dated July, 2004, while ATI has just corrected a memory management bug in the new 8-07 drivers. So, we had to stick to beta drivers that were obtainable from official web-sites of NVIDIA and ATI. 

A processor from VIA on the back side of Cooler Master cooler? :)

We used the following graphics cards for our performance-measurement actions:

• NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB (400MHz/1100MHz);
• NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT 256MB (350/1000MHz);
• NVIDIA GeForce 6800 128MB (325/700MHz);
• NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB (500/1000MHz);
• NVIDIA GeForce 6600 128MB (300/500MHz);
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5950 Ultra 256MB (475/950MHz);
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 256MB (400/850MHz);
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 XT 256MB (400/700MHz);
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra 128MB (475/900MHz);
• NVIDIA GeForce PCX 5750 128MB (425/500MHz);
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 Ultra 128MB (400/800MHz);
• ATI RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition 256MB (520/1120MHz);
• ATI RADEON X800 XT 256MB (500/1000MHz);
• ATI RADEON X800 PRO 256MB (475/900MHz);
• ATI RADEON 9800 XT 256MB (412/730MHz);
• ATI RADEON 9800 PRO 128MB (380/680MHz);
• ATI RADEON X600 XT 128MB (500/730MHz);
• ATI RADEON 9600 XT 128MB (500/600MHz);
• ATI RADEON 9600 PRO 128MB (400/600MHz);
• ATI RADEON 9500 PRO 128MB (275/550MHz);
• ATI RADEON X300 SE 128MB (325/400MHz).

We utilized five custom demos recorded by X-bit labs for benchmarking purposes.