Our testing methods
As ever, we did our best to deliver clean benchmark numbers. Tests were run at least three times, and the results were averaged.

Our test systems were configured like so:

Processor Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2.4GHz
System bus1GHz HyperTransport
MotherboardAsus A8N-SLI DeluxeATI CrossFire reference board
BIOS revision1013080012
North bridgenForce4 SLIRadeon Xpress 200P CrossFire Edition
South bridgeRS450
Chipset driversSMBus driver 4.45
SATA IDE driver 5.34		SMBus driver 5.10.1000.5
SATA IDE driver 5.0.0.2
Memory size1GB (2 DIMMs)
Memory typeOCZ EL PC3200 DDR SDRAM at 400MHz
CAS latency (CL)2
RAS to CAS delay (tRCD)2
RAS precharge (tRP)2
Cycle time (tRAS)8
Hard driveMaxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB SATA 150
AudioIntegrated nForce4/ALC850
with Realtek 5.10.0.5900 drivers		Integrated RS450/ALC880
with Realtek 5.10.00.5152 drivers
NetworkingNVIDIA Ethernet driver 4.82
Marvell Yukon 8.39.3.3 drivers
VIA Velocity v24 drivers		Marvell Yukon 8.39.3.3 drivers
VIA Velocity v24 drivers
GraphicsXFX GeForce 6800 256MB PCI-E with ForceWare 78.03 driversRadeon X1600 XT PCI-E  with Catalyst 8.173.1-05921a-026915E drivers
GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB PCI-E with ForceWare 78.03 driversRadeon X850 XT  PCI-E  with Catalyst 8.162.1-050811a-026057E drivers
Dual GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB PCI-E with ForceWare 78.03 driversDual Radeon X850 XT  PCI-E  with Catalyst 8.162.1-050811a-026057E drivers
XFX GeForce 7800 GT 256MB PCI-E with ForceWare 78.03 driversRadeon X1800 XL PCI-E  with Catalyst 8.173.1-05921a-026915E drivers
Dual XFX GeForce 7800 GT 256MB PCI-E with ForceWare 78.03 drivers 
MSI GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB PCI-E with ForceWare 78.03 driversRadeon X1800 XT PCI-E with Catalyst 8.173.1-05921a-026915E drivers
Dual MSI GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB PCI-E with ForceWare 78.03 drivers   
OSWindows XP Professional (32-bit)
OS updatesService Pack 2

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.

All of our test systems were powered by OCZ PowerStream 520W power supply units. The PowerStream was one of our Editor's Choice winners in our last PSU round-up.

Unless otherwise specified, the image quality settings for both ATI and NVIDIA graphics cards were left at the control panel defaults.

The test systems' Windows desktops were set at 1280x1024 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:

The tests and methods we employ are generally publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.