Test System Setup

Processor(s): Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3GHz (333MHz x 9)

Cooling: Corsair Nautilus500 (Supplied by Corsair) with Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Compound (Supplied by Arctic Cooling)

Motherboard(s): ASUS Blitz Extreme (Supplied by ASUS)

Memory: 2 X 1GB Corsair XMS3 DDR-3 1066MHz 7-7-7-21 (Supplied by Corsair)

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

Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2, Windows Vista

Drivers: Catalyst 7.11, Forceware 169.06

While we've looked at how the 8800GTS 512MB goes against the HD 3870 when in a large pile of cards, we haven't actually seen them go head to head in more detail.

What we'll do today is put the stock clocked HD 3870 against the stock clocked 8800 GTS 512MB from ZOTAC and check out exactly what's going on with these two top-end cards from NVIDIA and AMD.

We're using all the normal benchmarks along with testing out AA, AF and of course Vista performance which we have become so accustom to.

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 at the lower resolution there isn't much between the two cards, but as we begin to move up the 8800GTS 512MB really begins to stand out a bit more.