The information in this section lists the specifications for each system that was used in our evaluation. A partial list of the high-end ATI CrossFire specifications is being provided although we were unable to procure a CrossFire AM2 motherboard. One of the requirements of this evaluation was that the products we used had to be available in retail as of June 30th. If motherboards become available in the retail channel soon, we should be able to pick one up and include those results.

The same graphics driver settings were used across all systems and are specified near the bottom of the page. Given that the games being tested are older, features like high quality textures and transparency antialiasing were enabled. Note that the systems in this evaluation have been tied to a specific price point and are being labeled as low-end, mid-range, and high-end for reference purposes.

LOW-END SYSTEM

ATI CrossFire

• Abit AT8 Motherboard - CrossFire Xpress 200 Chipset
• 1GB Corsair CMX512-3200LLPRO PC-3200 DDR SDRAM 2-3-2-6-2T @ 200MHz
• Realtek ALC850 8-Channel High-Definition Onboard Audio
• Gigabyte Radeon X1600 Pro Graphics Cards - 500MHz Core/800MHz Memory (Effective)
• ATI Catalyst Driver 6.6

NVIDIA SLI

• Asus A8N-SLI Premium Motherboard - nForce4 SLI Chipset
• 1GB Corsair CMX512-3200LLPRO PC-3200 DDR SDRAM 2-3-2-6-2T @ 200MHz
• Realtek ALC850 8-Channel High-Definition Onboard Audio
• EVGA GeForce 7600 GS Graphics Cards - 400MHz Core/800MHz Memory (Effective)
• NVIDIA nForce4 AMD Platform WHQL Driver 6.70
• NVIDIA ForceWare Beta Driver 91.31

Gigabyte Radeon X1600 Pro

Click Image to Enlarge - 1140x760 (169KB)

MID-RANGE SYSTEM

ATI CrossFire

• Abit AT8 32X Motherboard - CrossFire Xpress 3200 Chipset
• 2GB Corsair CMX512-3200LLPRO PC-3200 DDR SDRAM 2-3-2-6-2T @ 200MHz
• Realtek ALC850 8-Channel High-Definition Onboard Audio
• Sapphire Radeon X1900 GT Graphics Cards - 500MHz Core/800MHz Memory (Effective)
• ATI Catalyst Driver 6.5 with nForce4 Hotfix

NVIDIA SLI

• Abit A8N 32X Motherboard - nForce4 SLI X16 Chipset
• 2GB Corsair CMX1024-3500LLPRO PC-3200 DDR SDRAM 2-3-2-6-1T @ 200MHz
• Realtek ALC850 8-Channel High-Definition Onboard Audio
• NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2 Graphics Card - 500MHz Core/600MHz Memory (Effective)
• NVIDIA nForce4 AMD X16 Platform WHQL Driver 6.85
• NVIDIA ForceWare Beta Driver 91.31

Radeon X1900 GT CrossFire

Click Image to Enlarge - 656x734 (297KB)

HIGH-END SYSTEM

ATI CrossFire

• Motherboard - To Be Determined
• 2GB SuperTalent T800UX2GC4 PC2-6400 DDR2 SDRAM 4-4-4-11-2T @ 400MHz
• ATI Radeon X1900 CrossFire Edition Graphics Card - 625MHz Core / 1.45GHz Memory (Effective)
• ATI Radeon X1900 Graphics Card - 625MHz Core / 1.45GHz Memory

NVIDIA SLI

• Foxconn C51XEM2AA Motherboard - nForce 590 SLI Chipset
• 2GB SuperTalent T800UX2GC4 PC2-6400 DDR2 SDRAM 4-4-4-11-2T @ 400MHz
• Realtek ALC882 8-Channel High-Definition Onboard Audio
• BFG GeForce 7900 GTX OC Graphics Cards - 670MHz Core/1.64GHz Memory (Effective)
• NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI Platform Beta Driver 9.34
• NVIDIA ForceWare Beta Driver 91.28

High-End SLI System

Click Image to Enlarge - 800x766 (299KB)

DRIVER 3D SETTINGS

ATI Catalyst

• Catalyst AI - Standard
• Mipmap Detail Level - High Quality
• High Quality AF - Enabled
• Adaptive Antialiasing - Hiqh Quality
• Temporal Antialiasing - Disabled
• Wait for Vertical Refresh - Always Off

NVIDIA ForceWare

• Image Setting - High Quality
• Trilinear Optimization - Off
• Anisotropic Mip Filter Optimization - Off
• Anisotropic Sample Optimization - Off
• Gamma Correct Antialiasing - On
• Transparency Antialiasing - Supersampling
• Multi-GPU Rendering Mode - Preferred
• Vertical Sync - Off

SuperTalent DDR2 2GB Overclocked Memory Kit

Click Image to Enlarge - 966x686 (304KB)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Common Software and Hardware

• Seagate Barracuda 300GB HDD, SATA 2, 7200RPM, 8.0ms Avg Seek, 8MB Buffer
• Sony E540 21" CRT
• Dell 3007WFP 30" LCD
• 32-Bit Color / Vsync Disabled / 75Hz (CRT) / 60Hz (LCD) Refresh Rate
• Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 / DirectX 9.0c
• Fraps - v2.7.2

Test Applications

• Brothers In Arms: Road to Hill 30 - v1.03
• Dungeon Siege 2 Demo - v2.2
• Morrowind - v1.2.0722
• Neverwinter Nights - v1.67
• Painkiller - v1.64

Zalman CNPS9500 AM2 CPU Cooler

Click Image to Enlarge - 856x750 (246KB)

Notes

• Application antialiasing and anisotropic filtering were used when available. Otherwise, they were forced in the driver.
• The highest quality in-game graphics settings were enabled across all systems.
• Sound was enabled and EAX/EAX2 were used when available.

Next Page: Gameplay Benchmarking and Image Quality