Half-Life 2 is a popular franchise and we benchmark the video cards using Episode Two with the aid of HOC Half-Life 2 Episode Two benchmarking utility using the “HOC Demo 1” provided by this program. We ran the game in three 16:10 widescreen resolutions, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, and 2560×1600, under two scenarios. First with quality set to maximum, bilinear filtering and anti-aliasing set to x0. This configuration we are calling “low” on the charts and tables below. Then we maxed out image quality settings, enabling x16 anisotropic filtering and 16xQCS anti-aliasing. This configuration we are calling “high” on our charts and tables. We updated the game up to the June 9th 2008 patch. The results below are the average number of frames per second (FPS) achieved by each card.
The Aurum Xilenser is the latest power supply series from FSP, using a fanless design and featuring the 80 Plus Gold certification. Let’s see how the 500 W model with fixed cabling fared in our tests.
OCZ has just released a new incarnation of their mainstream StealthXStream series, dubbed the StealthXStream 2. Let’s see if the 600 W model is a good pick.
Zalman GS1000 is a hybrid aluminum/steel full-tower case from Zalman, featuring four 5 ¼” bays and six 3 ½” bays for hard disk drives on the front of the case, three of them with hot swapping capability, and several other features.
Let’s analyze the CM 690 III, the new version of one of the most popular mid-tower cases from Cooler Master, supporting 240 mm radiators and up to ten SSDs.
