|
Test Setup and Methodology:
We talked a little bit last week about the state
of PC Gaming, and it looks like the situation is not improving much,
especially with Infinity Ward's recently announced decision to
remove PC-centric aspects of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, that
could infect the game with a nasty case of portitis. I am
still vigilant in the hope that the availability of affordable yet
powerful hardware will be an incentive for developers to bring some
love to the PC gaming world again, however that is going to take
some time.
In the meantime, our test suite remains
unchanged, with Crysis:Warhead heading up the eyecandy
delivering, pixel-pushing, videocard torture that we crave.
Here is our complete test suite:
-
Crysis: Warhead
-
X3: Terran Conflict
-
Stalker: Clear Skies
-
Unigine Tropics
-
3DMark06
-
3DMark Vantage
In addition, for the hwbot crowd, I am bringing
back some classic benches that will see some action from the
overclocking community:
-
3DMark01se
-
3DMark03
-
3DMark05
Our test bed, is identical to what we used in the
HD5770 review, including 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate and our new SSD
array. We will also include the results of the previous HD5770
review:
| CPU: |
Intel i7 920 @ 4.07GHz |
| Motherboard: |
Gigabyte GA-EX58-EXTREME |
| GPU: |
Sapphire HD 4890 Vapor-X 2GB
Sapphire HD 5770 1GB
Sapphire HD 4870X2 2GB
Sapphire HD 5870 1GB |
| RAM: |
6GB of Crucial Ballistix Tracer 1600,
8-8-8-24 2T |
| Case: |
Danger Den Torture Rack |
| Sound: |
Creative Labs X-Fi XtremeMusic |
| Cooling: |
Apogee GTZ, MCR320 |
| Hard Drives: |
1x1500GB
Seagate Barracuda
4x50GB SLC SSD RAID-0 |
| PSU: |
Corsair 1000HX |
Now, on to the testing!
|