Our testing methods
The benchmark results we'll present come from testing conducted by our own Geoff Gasior. I also conducted extensive testing myself on a GeForce FX 5800 Ultra as we formulated the best means of testing for these driver optimizations. The results of Geoff's tests served to confirm my own results. Since Geoff was able to test on a wider range of cards, we've elected to publish his results.
As ever, we did our best to deliver clean benchmark numbers. Tests were run three times, and the results were averaged.
Our test system was configured like so:
| System | ||
| Processor | Athlon XP 'Thoroughbred' 2600+ 2.083GHz | |
| Front-side bus | 333MHz (166MHz DDR) | |
| Motherboard | Asus A7N8X | |
| Chipset | NVIDIA nForce2 | |
| North bridge | nForce2 SPP | |
| South bridge | nForce2 MCP | |
| Chipset drivers | NVIDIA 2.03 | |
| Memory size | 512MB (2 DIMMs) | |
| Memory type | Corsair XMS3200 PC2700 DDR SDRAM (333MHz) | |
| Sound | nForce2 APU | |
| Graphics card | GeForce FX 5200 Ultra 128MB GeForce FX 5600 256MB GeForce FX 5800 Ultra 128MB | |
| Graphics driver | Detonator 44.03 | |
| Storage | Maxtor DiamondMax Plus D740X 7200RPM ATA/100 hard drive | |
| OS | Microsoft Windows XP Professional | |
| OS updates | Service Pack 1, DirectX 9.0a | |
The "Quality" setting was used with the Detonator FX 44.03 drivers.
The test system's Windows desktop was set at 1024x768 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.
We used the following versions of our test applications:
- FutureMark 3DMark03 Build 330
All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.
