Test Systems

System Setup

Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800

ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe
ASUS P5W DH Deluxe

2GB Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4

ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 256MB
Sapphire Radeon X1900 GT 256MB
ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB
Catalyst 6.8

BFG GeForce 7950 GT OC
EVGA e-GeForce 7950 GT KO
XFX GeForce 7950 GT 570M Extreme
NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT
Driver version ForceWare 91.47

250GB Maxtor Hard Drive Maxline III SATA Hard Drive w/16MB Cache

Windows XP Professional SP2

DirectX 9.0c

Benchmarks

Half-Life 2 Lost Coast
Far Cry 1.33 (1.4 patch for ATI cards)
F.E.A.R. 1.07
Quake 4 1.2
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Battlefield 2 1.3
Lock On: Modern Air Combat
Call of Duty 2 1.3
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic Demo

Notes

We're continuing to test the NVIDIA cards in "high quality" rather than the default image quality mode which is "quality". As we've discussed previously, we've gotten lots of positive feedback as a result of this change, so we see no reason to change now. NVIDIA enthusiasts should note though that while enabling the high quality mode does cut down on texture shimmering, it does come with a performance hit.