3DMark05 measures performance by simulating DirectX 9.0c games, i.e., using the new Shader 3.0 model. This programming model is used by Far Cry game and other games to be launched in the future. This new programming model is used by GeForce 6 and 7 series from NVIDIA and Radeon X1000 series from ATI.
We run this program in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialising and anisotropic filtering, and then configuring antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering also at 4x. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our benchmark, allowing direct comparison between them.
The results you check below. Radeon X1600 Pro Turbo from HIS is factory-overclocked, running at 587 MHz and accessing its memory at 1.38 GHz, while the standard Radeon X1600 Pro runs at 500 MHz and accesses its memory at 780 MHz.
We added five new thermal compounds to our previous roundup, for a total of 45 different thermal compounds from major brands. We also tried another “alternative” compound: mayonnaise.
NZXT has just announced the Phantom, a full-tower case with tons of exciting features, that will reach the market in September. Let’s take an in-depth look at it!
A+ Black Pearl is an all-aluminum full tower case from Tagan featuring seven 5 ¼” bays and eight internal 3 ½” bays, plus a panel to control the speed of up to four fans and also to monitor temperature.
The Themaltake Dasher and the Mionix Propus 380 step on the ring to see which one is the best USD 20 gaming-grade mousepad. See here the outcome of this bout.