XFX 8800 GT 256MB XXX Alpha Dog Edition
For testing the 8800 GT 256MB XXX Alpha Dog Edition, we used an Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 on an Abit Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI motherboard. We also used 2GB of Corsair DDR2 (TWIN2X1024A-5400UL) RAM and a 120GB Maxtor SATA hard drive. The 8800 GT 256MB XXX Alpha Dog Edition was compared to an NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT, an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, an ATI Radeon HD 3850 and an ATI Radeon X1950 Pro. Note: Because we are using both DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 capable cards, we will not be enabling DX10 effects in the DX10 games in order to provide an apples to apples comparison.
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Motherboard - Video Cards - Memory - Audio - Hard Drive -
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Hardware Used: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2.13GHz) Abit Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI nForce 650i SLI chipset XFX 8800 GT 256MB XXX Alpha Dog ATI Radeon HD 3850 NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 2048MB Corsair XMS2 DDR2-675MHz CAS 4 Integrated on board Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 120GB - 7200RPM - SATA |
Operating System - Chipset Drivers - DirectX - Video Drivers - Synthetic (DX) - DirectX - DirectX - DirectX - OpenGL - |
Relevant Software: Windows Vista nForce Drivers v8.43 DirectX 10 NVIDIA Forceware v169.25 ATI Catalyst v7.11 Benchmarks Used: 3DMark06 v1.1.0 Crysis SP Demo Half-Life 2: Episode 2 Company of Heroes v1.71 Enemy Territory: Quake Wars |
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;) 3DMark06 |
Futuremark recently launched a brand new version of its popular benchmark, 3DMark06. The new version of the benchmark is updated in a number of ways and now 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. |
The 8800 GT 256MB XXX Alpha Dog Edition started things off just where we thought it would: a little better than the reference 8800 GT 256MB, better than the reference Radeon HD 3850, and not quite as good as the 8800 GT 512MB. The Shader Model 3.0 / HDR test results were the most interesting as the 8800 GT 256MB XXX Alpha Dog Edition's boosted clocks helped it gain around a 300 point lead on both the 8800 GT 256MB and the Radeon HD 3850.
