Now we begin the benchmark portion of this article, but first let me show you our test system plus the software we used.

Mainboard

ASUS X58 Rampage 2 Extreme (Primary Core i7 platform tests)
ASUS X48 Deluxe mainboard (ATI Radeon cards)
nForce 680i SLI (NVIDIA GeForce cards)

Processor

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Processor @ 3.0 GHz (FSB 1333)
Intel Core i7 965
 

Graphics Cards

GeForce GTX 280 1024MB, 2-way, 3-way
GeForce GTX 260 896, 2-way
GeForce 9800 GX2, Quad
Radeon 4870, 2-way
Radeon 4870 X2, 2-way

Memory

3072 MB (3x1024MB) DDR3 2000 MHz OCZ (ASUS X58 Rampage 2 Extreme)
2048 MB (2x1024MB) DDR3 1333 MHz Corsair (ASUS X48 mainboard)
2048 MB (2x1024MB) DDR2 1066 MHz Corsair (NVIDIA 680i mainboard)

Power Supply Unit

Enermax Galaxy 1000 Watt PSU (Intel mainboard)
Enermax Galaxy 1000 Watt PSU (ASUS mainboards)
BFG 800W ES (NVIDIA mainboard)

Monitor

Dell 3007WFP - up to 2560x1600

OS related software

Windows Vista 32-bit SP1
DirectX 9/10 End User Runtime
ATI Catalyst Press 8.10
NVIDIA GeForce 180.43

Software benchmark suite

Band of Brothers: Hell's Highway
Call of Duty 4
Crysis Warhead
Far Cry 2
F.E.A.R.
3Dmark Vantage

A word about "FPS"

What are we looking for in gaming performance wise? First off, obviously Guru3D tends to think that all games should be played at the best image quality (IQ) possible. There's a dilemma though, IQ often interferes with the performance of a graphics card. We measure this in FPS, the number of frames a graphics card can render per second, the higher it is the more fluently your game will display itself.

A game's frames per second (FPS) is a measured average of a series of tests. That test often is a time demo, a recorded part of the game which is a 1:1 representation of the actual game and its gameplay experience. After forcing the same image quality settings; this time-demo is then used for all graphics cards so that the actual measuring is as objective as can be.

• So if a graphics card barely manages less than 30 FPS, then the game is not very playable, we want to avoid that at all cost.
• With 30 FPS up-to roughly 40 FPS you'll be very able to play the game with perhaps a tiny stutter at certain graphically intensive parts. Overall a very enjoyable experience. Match the best possible resolution to this result and you'll have the best possible rendering quality versus resolution, hey you want both of them to be as high as possible.
• When a graphics card is doing 60 FPS on average or higher then you can rest assured that the game will likely play extremely smoothly at every point in the game, turn on every possible in-game IQ setting.
• Over 100 FPS? You have either a MONSTER graphics card or a very old game.