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Hardware Used
Now we begin the benchmark portion of this article, but first let me show you our test system.
Mainboard
Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI motherboard, nForce4 SLI, Socket 939
Processor
AMD Athlon 64 4000+, Socket 939
Graphics Cards
ATI Radeon x800 XL (PCX), 512 MB Sapphire Technology
ATI Radeon x850 XL Platinum Edition (PCX), 256 MB HiS Technology
ATI Radeon x850 XL (PCX), 256 MB HiS Technology
ATI Radeon x800 XL (PCX), 256 MB HiS Technology
Memory
512 MB (2x256MB) DDR1 - PC-3200 Crucial 2.5-3-3-7
Software
Windows XP Professional SP2
NVIDIA nForce4 Platform Driver 6.39
DirectX 9.0c End User Runtime
Catalyst 5.4
RivaTuner 2.0 (tweak utility)
Far Cry (Guru3D custom timedemo)
Splinter Cell (Guru3D custom timedemo)
Half-Life 2
(Guru3D custom timedemo)
3DMark03
3DMark05
AquaMark 3
Return to Castle Wolvenstein
Doom 3
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Frames per Second (FPS)
Now what you need to observe is simple, the numbers versus the screen resolution. The higher the better.
The numbers represent what we call FPS, this means Frames per second. A game's Frames per second is a measured average of a series of test. That test often is a timedemo, a recorded part of the game which is a 1:1 representation of the actual game(play). After forcing the same image quality settings this timedemo is then used for all graphics cards so that the actual measuring is as objective as can be for all graphics cards.
If a card reaches >30 FPS then the card is barely able to play the game. With 30 FPS up-to roughly 40 FPS you'll be very able to play the game with perhaps a tiny stutter at certain, intensive on the graphics card, parts.
When a graphics card is doing 60 FPS at average or higher then you can rest assured that the game will likely play extremely smooth at every point in the game.
You are always aiming for the highest possible FPS versus the highest resolution versus the highest image quality.
| | Frames per second |
Gameplay | | <30 FPS |
very limited gameplay | | 30-40 FPS |
average yet playable | | 40-60 FPS |
good gameplay | | >60 FPS |
best possible gameplay |
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