you used catlyst 7.9...

good work.

not.

Shouldn't HL2: Episode Two be superceding the HL2: Episode One benchmark suite by now? :-P

You have one of the most complete testing procedures on the net.

As I always consider heat radiation, not just noise (ideally metered at 1m) in graphics card purchase decisions, why not include some form of heat measurement, similar to Guru of 3D, or Hardwarezone?

"Low price." comparing to what? 8800GTS.

its too expensive DDR3 version and 86GT can be had almost twice as low, in easter europe.

I always appreciate your level of expertise and thoroughness, but there is one very big flaw in this article: you tested this card in circumstances in which nobody would use it!
This is a somewhat overclocked version of a budget card (under $150). Its aimed at casual and gamers on a tight budget. The former doesn't care about all of the eye candy, and the latter cares about smooth gammeplay more than anything else. Yet you tested the card with 4xAA wherever you could, and in resolutions up to 1920x1200 or 1920x1440 and you ended up with charts like the one for Neverwinter Nights 2, in which the card can't get 10fps on average even in the lowest tested resolution. In the end, you've got 20 pages repeating what was clear from the start, that this card won't be able to play latest games with all the eye candy in highest possible resolution, which is something anyone could have guessed for a budget card (if it weren't so why would there be the performance and high end segments?!), and most people buying these cards probably don't have such monitors anyway.
So I wish you concentrated on what this card can do instead. You mentioned yourselves, this card has decent computational power, yet low texturing speed makes it almost useless with AA on. Well turn it off, then. And skip the 1920 resolution. That way you'd show your readers what this card can deliver, instead of what it can't, and, I believe, give them much more useful information than you did.

All of these card manufactures really need to hire better artist instead of trying to sell their cards based on female models with
huge boobies as well as naked men in spandex like
on those Sapphire HD2900XTs box art.

this benchmarking was done using 7.9 ATI Catalyst drivers. They should have done it with 7.10 which are available for a few days now, and they promise much better performance.

Something tells me that this graphics card would benefit from 7.10 drivers...

Hi. I am wondering why the benchmark result showed is less than what i got. The testbed is high end one but mine is the mid-end one. This is my system:

- AMD 64 X2 5600+ @2.8 GHz (Stock)
- MSI K9N Neo V3 Socket AM2
- MSI 8600GT DDR3 OC Version (Core: 580 MHz, Mem: 800 MHz)
- Kingston Value RAM ( 3 x 1 GB )
- Sound Blaster Audigy 2
- Seagate 250GB SATA 2

My 3D Mark results are:
3D Mark 05: 11 117
3D Mark 06: 6536

So, i want to know, what is the factors that gives different benchmark result since the result for mid end system is higher than high end one?

2600 2400 sucks qua performance real bad !

The 3DMarks seem a little low my 3700+@2830 and 7900GTX beats thoughs scores.

Since nwn2 is now at patch 1.10, maybe you could bring your reviews of cards with this game up to date.