Test Setup
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Test Systems |
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| CPU | Intel Pentium 4 3.2C [Check Prices] |
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| Motherboard | Asus P4C800 Deluxe (Intel 875P) [Check Prices] |
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| Chipset Drivers | Intel 5.0.2.1003 | |
| RAM | 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 DDR400 RAM (Kingston) [Check Prices] |
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| Network | Integrated | |
| PSU | Eurotech Silent 460W [Check Prices] |
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| Video | ATI Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition 256MB | ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB |
| Video Drivers | ATI Catalyst (5.8 WHQL) | |
| OS | Windows XP Professional SP2 [Check Prices] |
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| DirectX Runtime | DirectX9.0c | |
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Games Benchmarks - DirectX |
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| Battlefield 2 [Check Prices] |
v1.0 Internal Beyond3D Demo Recording Ultra-High Quality Settings Application anisotropic Filtering Application FSAA |
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Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory |
Lighthouse demo used |
| Far Cry [Check Prices] |
v1.32 patch Custom Firingsquad demo "Very High" detail settings "Ultra High" water setting Highest applicable shader profile used Application Anisotropic Filtering Application FSAA |
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Half Life 2 |
Internal Beyond3D Demo Recording |
| All games benchmarks using 32bit colour and 32bit textures (where applicable) | |
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Games Benchmarks - OpenGL |
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Doom 3 |
Internal Beyond3D Demo Recording |
| All games benchmarks using 32bit colour and 32bit textures (where applicable) | |
This test-system is near the upgrade ceiling of an Intel AGP system. Intel’s decision to combine the change to PCI-Express with the change from socket 478 to Socket LGA775 means that a 3.4Ghz CPU is the absolute top-most you’ll be able to upgrade to unless you use non-Intel based chipsets but even these hybrid systems are rare. The Radeon 9800 PRO included in this article will give us a control sample for what used to be a reasonably balanced option for ~3.0Ghz Intel CPUs and see if the Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition is worth the upgrade for such a system. To prevent excessive CPU limitation, the usual Unreal Tournament 2004 benchmark has been replaced with Battlefield 2 for this review.
