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Hardware

Our current video card testing rig is built out of the following hardware:

• CPU: Intel QX9650 at 3.0 GHZ (333x9)
• Motherboard:  Asus P5Q Deluxe
• Memory: 2 gigabytes of Mushkin XP2-9200 DDR2 RAM (2 * 1048MB @ 1066 MHz[5-5-5-18]) 
• Power Supply: Enermax Galaxy DXX 1000W
• Hard Drive: 250 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA, w/16 MB cache
• CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U 12
• OS: Vista-32,SP1

The GTX 260 is one of the faster video cards you could buy today, so we put it up against the speediest cards available today, including a HD 4850, a HD 4870, a overclocked HD 4870, and a GTX 280.

Software

For the drivers, all the ATI cards used Catalyst 8.10, and all the NVIDIA cards all used Forceware 180.43.

This time around, we switched out benchmarks around a bit, adding Dynasty Warriors 6 and Far Cry 2, and taking out the Echoes demo by adaune, and Bioshock.

Crysis: These benchmarks were performed using 'fly-by' GPU test found within the single-player pre-release demo version of the game. All graphic settings were on High.' For AA, we used a setting of 4x. DX10 mode was used. The game has also been fully patched.

Dynasty Warriors 6: This beat'em up from KOEI has a stand-alone benchmark program. The 'High' setting was used, and the tool only allows benches to be performed at 1024x768.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars: We use this id FPS benchmark to test out higher resolutions. We used the highest possible detail settings. We tested the resolutions at 4x AA as well as at 8x AA. 16x AF was also used.  

Far Cry 2: This open-world FPS is great looking game that really puts the strain on a gaming rig. We used the built-in benchmarking tool, and the overall 'Very High' quality setting was used.

3DMark06 and 3DMark Vantage: These popular synthetic benchmarking programs were used at a resolution of 1280x1024. Vantage was run in 'Performance' mode, and only the two GPU tests were used.

World In Conflict: We used the built-in benchmark of the demo version of this game. We ran the benchmark in DX9 rendering mode, with a 'High' level of quality. For the AA testing, we used a setting of 4x, and a setting of 16x for AF.

Unreal Tournament 3: We tested the game using a fly-through of the vehicle capture-the-flag map 'Suspense.'ShangriLa (map) running for 90 seconds. Details were set to 'High', and a AF setting of 16x was used.

If you would like any further information about our benchmark settings, feel free to ask us in the forums.