Test System Setup

Processor(s): Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3430MHz (381MHz FSB with 4:5 memory)

Motherboard(s): DFI Infinity 975X (Supplied by Bronet)

Memory: 2 X 1GB G.Skill HZ PC8000 @ 476MHz 4-4-4-12 (Supplied by Bronet)

Hard Disk(s): Hitachi 80GB 7200RPM SATA 2

Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2

Drivers: Include ATI Catalyst drivers and DX9c

When it came to testing there was clearly a few answers we wanted out of the article.

How does performance compare between the X1300XT and X1650PRO? How does performance compare against these cards in Crossfire? What performance increase does going Crossfire give us?

As we mentioned in the introduction, we have also included the higher-end Radeon X1900GT to see where the cards sit in comparison to something that is slightly more expensive than two X1650PRO cards in Crossfire and of course the X1300XT which is about 15% cheaper than the X1650PRO according to our sources but hard to find.

Is it worth going to the trouble of setting up Crossfire or should you just stick with a single high-end graphics cards? Let's allow our benchmark numbers to do the talking.

3DMark05

Version and / or Patch Used: Build 120

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

Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark05/

Buy It Here

3DMark05 is now the second latest version in the popular 3DMark "Gamers Benchmark" series. It includes a complete set of DX9 benchmarks which tests Shader Model 2.0 and above.

For more information on the 3DMark05 benchmark, we recommend you read our preview here.

We can see that the difference in performance between the X1300XT and X1650PRO is quite small. The performance increase to Crossfire is easily seen.

We also see at the lower resolution the performance of both cards in Crossfire sit quite close to the X1900GT. When moving to the higher resolution though we can see the more powerful X1900GT takes a significant lead.