The Video Card
The video card I used was a single inno3D 8800 Ultra.
The card is overclocked above the default core clock set by NVIDIA. This overclocked version of the GeForce 8800 Ultra has a GPU core clock of 640MHz. When I bought it, this was the only Ultra card available. Not only was it the only model I could find, it was the only card in the country (Australia). Apparently they just don't sell well.
I started to test with Windows Vista 32bit but I experienced some abnormalities with some of the games. I wasn't able to get consistent results. I switched over to Windows XP 64bit and instantly got consistent results. This article focuses on how the CPUs work, so being able to test in 64bit seemed more important than being able to test with DirectX10. (For graphics reviews, I will test with Vista 64bit.)
Test setup:
| Mainboard |
MSI X38 Diamond |
| Chipset |
Intel X38 |
| Video Card |
inno3D 8800 Ultra |
| ForceWare Drivers |
169.21 |
| Memory |
Corsair XMS3 running at 1333 MHz, 9-9-2-4 and 1.50 V |
| Hard Drive |
Western Digital Raptor 74.3GB, 10 000rpm x2 (not in RAID) |
| Optical Drive |
ASUS DVD RW |
| Operating System |
Microsoft Windows XP 64bit |
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| Variable Processors: |
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 |
| |
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 |
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