Our testing methods
All tests were run three times, and their results were averaged, using the following test systems.

Processor Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.4GHz
Front-side bus 800MHz (200MHz quad pumped)
Motherboard Abit AG8
Bios revision 6.00PG
North bridge Intel 915P
South bridge Intel ICH6R
Chipset drivers 6.0.1.1002
Memory size 1GB (2 DIMMs)
Memory type OCZ PC3200 EL Platinum Rev 2 DDR SDRAM at 400MHz
CAS latency (CL) 2
RAS to CAS delay (tRCD) 2
RAS precharge (tRP) 2
Cycle time (tRAS) 5
Hard drive Western Digital Raptor WD360GD 37GB
Audio ICH6R/ALC658
Graphics 1 Radeon X700 128MB with CATALYST 4.11 drivers
Graphics 2 Abit Radeon X700 Pro 128MB with CATALYST 4.11 drivers
Graphics 3 Gigabyte Radeon X700 Pro 256MB CATALYST 4.11 drivers
Graphics 4 Albatron GeForce 6600 128MB with ForceWare 66.93 drivers
Graphics 5 Chaintech GeForce 6600 GT 128MB with ForceWare 66.93 drivers
Graphics 6 XFX GeForce 6600 GT 128MB with ForceWare 66.93 drivers
OS Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2

Today we'll be running our mid-range PCI Express graphics cards through a punishing gauntlet of gaming tests from multiple genres. Note that I've included a vanilla Radeon X700 card to compete with the Albatron GeForce 6600. The Radeon X700 is actually the Abit Radeon X700 Pro clocked at an X700 standard 400MHz core and 600MHz memory.

ATI fanboys will no doubt notice that I haven't included a Radeon X700 XT graphics card in the mix. Despite being launched more than two months ago, X700 XT cards have yet to hit the market. Since all the other cards in this comparison are widely available, I've left the X700 XT out.

Thanks to OCZ for providing us with memory for our testing. If you're looking to tweak out your system to the max and maybe overclock it a little, OCZ's RAM is definitely worth considering.

Also, our test system was powered by OCZ PowerStream power supply units. The PowerStream was one of our Editor's Choice winners in our latest PSU round-up.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

The test systems' Windows desktop was set at 1280x1024 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests. All of the 3D gaming tests used the highest possible detail image quality settings except where otherwise noted.

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.