Our testing methods
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:

To frame the card against a familiar competitor, I've tested it against ATI's Radeon 9600 Pro. However, until cards and pricing become available next year, it's hard to know what the S8 will line up against.

It's important to mention that, at press time, the beta S3 15.07.04a drivers we used for testing weren't approved by FutureMark for use with 3DMark03. FutureMark has yet to evaluate the drivers in question. Keep in mind that future 3DMark03 patches may combat optimizations in unapproved drivers, which could impact performance in the benchmark.

The test system's Windows desktop was set at 1024x768 in 32-bit color at a 75Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

• FutureMark 3DMark03 Build 340
• Comanche 4 demo benchmark
• Quake III Arena v1.31 with trdemo1.dm_67
• Serious Sam SE v1.07 with Demo0003
• Unreal Tournament 2003 with trtest1.dem
• Splinter Cell v1.2 with TRKalinatekDemo.bin
• Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness v49 patch
• ShaderMark 2.0
• Halo 1.02
• AquaMark3

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.