ASUS EN9800GTX TOP Graphics Card

Name: ASUS EN9800GTX TOP Graphics Card - Page 3
Brand: ASUS

by Shane Unrein — Friday, July 25, 2008, 09:30 AM EDT

Test System and 3DMark06

HotHardware's Test System

Intel Core 2 Duo Powered

Hardware Used:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2.13GHz)

Abit Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI
(nForce 650i SLI chipset)

ASUS EN9800GTX TOP 512MB
GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB
GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
Radeon HD 3850 256MB

2048MB Corsair DDR2-800 C4
(2 X 1GB)

Integrated Audio
Integrated Network

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9
(7,200RPM - SATA)

Relevant Software:
Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit)

NVIDIA Forceware v175.16
ATI Catalyst v8.6
NVIDIA nForce v8.43

Benchmarks Used:
3DMark Vantage
3DMark06
Crysis v1.21
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars v1.5
Company of Heroes
Half-Life 2: Episode 2

Futuremark 3DMark06

Synthetic DirectX Gaming

3DMark06

Before Vantage, there was Futuremark 3DMark06, which has been quite popular for some time now. This version of the benchmark includes not only Shader Model 2.0 tests but also Shader Model 3.0 and HDR tests as well. Some of the assets from 3DMark05 have been re-used, but the scenes are now rendered with much more geometric detail, and the shader complexity is vastly increased as well. Max shader length in 3DMark05 was 96 instructions, while 3DMark06 ups the number of instructions to 512. 3DMark06 also employs much more lighting, and there is extensive use of soft shadows. With 3DMark06, Futuremark has also updated how the final score is tabulated. In this latest version of the benchmark, SM 2.0 and HDR / SM3.0 tests are weighted, and the CPU score is factored into the final tally as well.

We are very close to transitioning away from 3DMark06 since 3DMark Vantage has arrived, but we decided to go ahead and include these results since so many of you are much more familiar with 3DMark06. The ASUS EN9800GTX TOP proves to be the top performer, but there isn't really much difference between the EN9800GTX TOP and the reference 9800 GTX.