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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
Athlon64 4000+, Socket 939 (sponsored by AMD)
Graphics Cards
ATI Radeon x800 GT (PCX), 256 MB
ATI Radeon x800 GTO (PCX), 256 MB
ATI Radeon x800 XL (PCX), 256 MB
ATI Radeon x850 XT (PCX), 256 MB
ATI Radeon X1600 XT (PCX), 256 MB
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT (PCX), 128 MB
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 (PCX)(12 pipe) 256 MB
Memory
1024 MB (2x512MB) DDR400 - PC-3200 2.5-3-3-7
Software
Windows XP Professional SP2
NVIDIA nForce4 Platform Driver 6.39
DirectX 9.0c End User Runtime
Catalyst 5.10a
ForceWare 77.72 WHQL
RivaTuner 2.0 (tweak utility)
Far Cry (Guru3D custom timedemo)
Splinter Cell (Guru3D custom timedemo)
Splinter Cell 3 (Guru3D custom timedemo)
Half-Life 2
(Guru3D custom timedemo) 3DMark03
3DMark05
AquaMark 3
Chronicles of Riddick (Guru3D custom timedemo)
Doom 3
Quake 4 (Guru3D custom timedemo)
F.E.A.R
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FPS = Frames Per Second |
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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 tests. 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 can only manage <30 FPS then the game is barely playable. With 30 FPS up-to roughly 40 FPS you'll be very able to play the game with perhaps a tiny stutter at certain graphically intense parts.
When a graphics card is doing 60 FPS on average or higher then you can rest assured that the game will likely play extremely smoothly 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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