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Hardware and Software Used
Let us begin the benchmark portion of this article, but first let me show you our test system plus the software we used.
Mainboard
Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI motherboard, nForce4 SLI, Socket 939
Processor
AMD Athlon 64 FX-57, Socket 939
Graphics Card
GeForce 7800 GTX (PCX) 512 MB NVIDIA reference model
Memory
| Crucial 512 MB PC3200U 3-3-3-8 |
| OCZ 512MB PC3200 Platinum 2-4-4-9 |
| Corsair 2GB 3500LL PRO 2-3-2-6 |
| OCZ 1024MB PC3200 Gold 2.5-3-3-7 |
| PDC1G3200+XBLK 2-2-2-5 |
Software
Windows XP Professional SP2
NVIDIA nForce4 Platform Driver 6.39
DirectX 9.0c End User Runtime
ForceWare 81.89
RivaTuner 2.0 (tweak utility)
3DMark03
3DMark05
AquaMark 3
Doom 3
Quake 4 (Guru3D custom timedemo)
Serious Sam 2
PCMark 05
SiSoft Sandra
Everest Home Edition
Now what you need to observe in the coming pages is designed around a simple principle - the numbers versus the screen resolution, the higher the better for both.
The numbers represent what we call FPS, this means Frames per second. A game's frames per second is a measured average of a series of tests. That test often is a timedemo, a recorded part of the game which is a 1:1 representation of the actual game(play). After forcing the same image quality settings this timedemo is then used for all graphics cards so that the actual measuring is as objective as can be for all graphics cards. If a card can only manage <30 FPS then the game is barely playable. With 30 FPS up-to roughly 40 FPS you'll be very able to play the game with perhaps a tiny stutter at certain graphically intensive parts.
When a graphics card is doing 60 FPS on average or higher then you can rest assured that the game will likely play extremely smoothly at every point in the game.
You are always aiming for the highest possible FPS, versus the highest resolution, versus the highest image quality.
| Frames per second | Gameplay |
| <30 FPS | very limited gameplay |
| 30-40 FPS | average yet playable |
| 40-60 FPS | good gameplay |
| >60 FPS | best possible gameplay |
We'll compare several memory kits today.
