Testing

Test Rig

Methodology

To test graphics cards, we use a fresh install of windows XP Pro x86 and Vista Ultimate x86 and run the card(s) through a series of synthetic and real world gaming benchmarks.

The tests that were run were as follows:

• 3Dmark Vantage
• 3Dmark06
• Lost Planet
• Far Cry 2
• Unreal Tournament

All tests were run 3 times with the results averaged to give the final score.

For comparison purposes, the 9800GTX+ Black is being compared to the vastly more expensive Sapphire 4870 x2.

Overclocking

Before taking part in the testing, I used nTune performance settings within the nVidia control panel to goose the card up a bit and see how far it would clock. From a stock of 785MHZ on the core, and 1150MHZ on the memory, I managed to clock it to 827MHZ on the core and 1225MHZ on the memory. Not a bad OC, but nothing that great. Not enough to do an extra OC setting for the tests.