Test System Setup

Processor(s): Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.33GHz (366MHz x 9 and FSB 1:1)

Motherboard(s): ABIT IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi (Supplied by Universal ABIT)

Memory: 2 x 1GB Crucial PC8000 5-5-5-15 (Supplied by Crucial)

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

Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2

Drivers: Nvidia ForceWare 158.16 and DX9c

With a reference model in hand alongside our water cooled 8800 GTX from MSI, it was time to have a look at a straight out comparison between the two.

To make things a little more interesting, we also added the new Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra into the mix to see how MSI's uber GTX can go up against a card which quite a lot more expensive.

From the previous page, the standard 8800 GTX comes in with a Core / Memory clock of 575MHz / 1800MHz DDR. Out of the box the MSI 8800 GTX OC Liquid is 610MHz / 2000MHz DDR which is quite a decent bump in performance and only just behind the new GeForce 8800 Ultra with clocks of 612MHz / 2160MHz DDR. It will be very interesting to see if the MSI OC Liquid can come close to the Ultra in terms of clock speeds once overclocked - we will find out soon enough.

With this product of course sitting at the higher end of the scale, we had to test at 2560 x 1600 resolution, so that is what we did. Let us find out how things went.

3DMark05

Version and / or Patch Used: Build 130

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 it is faster than the reference card as you would expect, the biggest gains are seen at the higher resolution as more load is placed. As expected, GeForce 8800 Ultra shows who is boss but do not forget it is much more expensive, too.