The Radeon X600
XT core is clocked by default at 500 MHz, so we were hoping to overclock it
to at least 550MHz... or a little further.
In small steps, the core speed was increased a few MHz at
a time all the way to 600MHz without any problems. At speeds above 616MHz
the Gigabyte GV-RX60X128V ran into a peculiar problem; there were no visual
artifacts or any other signs of instability, but when running 3DMark the screen
would just go blank. The back of the card was toasty, but not really that hot,
so I'm not certain what could have been holding it back.
With the core overclocking
done, we turned our attention to the memory - with a 2.5ns speed rating it should be
capable of busting past 370MHz! Yet, unfortunately, it wasn't quite up to task; the
maximum speed we were able to achieve was 414 MHz. Not bad, but a
bit of a letdown after seeing how
high the core overclocked.
The X600XT core
and memory worked well together so we were able to run both at maximum
speed for all benchmarks. As you'll see
shortly, overclocking boosts performance very nicely.
|
PCStats Test System Specs: |
|
sytem 1 |
system 2 |
processor: |
intel pentium 4 540 |
intel pentium 4 3.0c |
clock
speed: |
16 x 200 mhz = 3.2 ghz |
15 x 200 mhz = 3.0 ghz |
motherboards: |
gigabyte 8anxp-d, i925x |
gigabyte 8knxp, i875p |
videocard: |
gigabyte gv-rx60x128v gigabyte gv-nx57128d msi pcx5750-td128
|
ati radeon 9800xt ati radeon 9800 pro ati
radeon 9700 pro asus radeon 9600xt msi fx5950 ultra-td128 msi fx5900u-vtd256 msi
fx5900xt-vtd128 aopen geforcefx
5900xt |
memory: |
2x 256mb crucial pc4300
ddr2 |
2x 256mb corsair twinx
3200ll |
hard
drive: |
40gb wd special
ed |
40gb wd special
ed |
cdrom: |
msi x48 cd-rw/dvd-rom |
nec 52x cd-rom |
powersupply: |
vantec stealth 470w |
vantec stealth 470w |
software setup |
windowsxp build 2600 intel inf 5.02.1012 forceware 60.85 |
windowsxp build 2600 intel inf 5.02.1012 catalyst 3.9 detonator
53.03 |
benchmarks |
3dmark2001se codecreatures aquamark aquamark3 gun metal 2 x2 the
threat ut2003
aa test, af and
aa+af test 3dmark2001se x2 the threat ut2003 | |
the agp
and pci-e systems are different, but the results are being included for
reference.
By
combining DirectX8 support with completely new graphics, it continues to provide
good overall system benchmarks. 3DMark2001SE has been created in cooperation
with the major 3D accelerator and processor manufacturers to provide a reliable
set of diagnostic tools. The suite demonstrates 3D gaming performance by using
real-world gaming technology to test a system's true performance abilities.
Tests include: DirectX8 Vertex Shaders, Pixel Shaders and Point Sprites, DOT3
and Environment Mapped Bump Mapping, support for Full Scene Anti-aliasing and
Texture Compression and two game tests using Ipion real-time physics.
Higher
numbers denote better performance.
As you
can see the Gigabyte GV-RX60X128V does pretty well for itself here in 3DMark,
considering it's a mainstream card. It takes over right where the 9600XT left
off. Overclocking boosts the score nicely as well.