Testbed and Methods

To check out the result of the modifications described in the previous sections, I used an open testbed configured like follows:

• Processor: AMD Sempron 3000+ (Palermo) Socket 939
• Mainboard: ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 (ULi1695+ULi1567)
• CPU cooler: Arctic Cooling Alpine 64
• Memory: 2x512MB TwinMOS (Winbond UTT CH-5, -AA4T)
• Power supply: 600W be quiet! Dark Power ATX2.2
• Hard disk drive: 120GB ATA-100 Hitachi (7200 rpm)
• Optical drive: NEC ND-3520A DVD-RW

The CPU was clocked at 2800MHz (350x8) and worked at 1.6V voltage. The memory worked as DDR-133 at a clock rate of 233MHz with 2-2-2-5-1T timings and a voltage of 3.4V.

The testbed ran Windows XP SP1. I overclocked the graphics card by means of RivaTuner 2.0 RC16.

The graphics card driver was ForceWare 91.31. I left the default performance/quality ratio and didn’t use anisotropic filtering or FSAA.

The following benchmarks were used:

• 3DMark 2003 version 3.6.0
• 3DMark 2005 build 1.2.0
• Serious Sam 2 version 2.066 (Direct3D); Medium graphics quality settings; Greendale demo
• F.E.A.R. version 1.02 (Direct3D); Medium graphics quality settings; standard demo

For a more illustrative performance analysis we would like to also provide the results obtained from the GeForce 7600 GT from XFX. But before we move on to the benhcmarks let me say a few words about the XFX solution.