Test System Setup

Processor(s): Intel i7 920 @ 3.8GHz (190MHz x 20)

Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P (Supplied by Noctua)

Motherboard(s): GIGABYTE EX58-UD5 (Supplied by GIGABYTE)

Memory: 3 X 2GB OCZ Technology PC-12800 DDR-3 8-8-8-24 (OCZ3G1600LV6GK)

Hard Disk(s): Western Digital 300GB Velicorapter (Supplied by Western Digital)

Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2, Windows Vista SP1 64-Bit

Drivers: Catalyst 9.1 and Catalyst 9.2

This is a very interesting performance improvement promise this month. If you read the first sentence you will notice that ATI mention you will get a framerate increase where you are hitting the CPU-limit. This usually happens when you have a powerful graphics card and a not so powerful CPU, or if your CPU isn't at the clock speed that lets you get full advantage of your system.

We do our best here to make sure we don't hit a CPU limitation and this is done by three things; first making sure we have a CPU that goes like stink. In our case, we use an Intel Core i7 920 clocked at 3.8GHz. The second thing we do is test all the way up to 2560 x 1600, with more load being placed on the graphics card which helps remove the CPU limitation. And finally, we run our game tests at higher settings to again move the load to the graphics card some more.

With that said, I wouldn't be too surprised if we don't really see any performance improvements today, since being CPU-limited isn't an issue we really have. But there's only one way to find out for sure, so let's get stuck into it.

3DMark Vantage

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.1

Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com

Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmarkvantage/

Buy It Here

3DMark Vantage is the new industry standard PC gaming performance benchmark from Futuremark, newly designed for Windows Vista and DirectX10. It includes two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, several new feature tests, and support for the latest hardware.

3DMark Vantage is based on a completely new rendering engine, developed specifically to take full advantage of DirectX10, the new graphics API from Microsoft.

HD 4850: Here we see no real change.

HD 4870: Here we see no real change.

HD 4870 X2: Here we see no real change.