Mainstream Benchmarks

As much as many of you would like a GeForce 7800 GTX SLI setup to match ours, most gamers thinking of buying F.E.A.R. have more modest computers at home. Simulating this is always difficult for us, because no matter how many hours we spend testing dozens of hardware combinations, there is always somebody left out. As a result, we have chosen a fairly modern setup and tested half a dozen less expensive graphics cards

Mainstream System Setup:

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (operating at 2200MHz, 11x200MHz); DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR (NVIDIA NForce4 SLI); 2 x 512MB Corsair XMS4000 Pro (operating in dual channel at 200MHz with 2.0-2-2-10 timings); Western Digital Raptor 74GB, 10000RPM SATA 150 Hard disk drive; OCZ PowerStream 520W Power Supply; Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2; DirectX 9.0c; NVIDIA NForce4 Standalone chipset drivers, version 6.66.

Video Cards:

• 1 x HIS X850XT IceQ II iTurbo 256MB - operating at its default clock speeds of 520/1080MHz using Beta Catalyst drivers, version 8.173.
  
• 1 x NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB - operating at its default clock speeds of 425/1100MHz using Forceware version 81.85 WHQL.
  
• 1 x Club 3D X800XL 256MB - operating at its default clock speeds of 400/980MHz using Beta Catalyst drivers, version 8.173.
  
• 1 x NVIDIA 6800 GT 256MB - operating at its default clock speeds of 350/1000MHz using Forceware version 81.85 WHQL.
  
• 1 x HIS X800GT IceQ II iTurbo 256MB - operating at its default clock speeds of 492/980MHz using Beta Catalyst drivers, version 8.173.
  
• 1 x NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB - operating at its default clock speeds of 500/1000MHz using Forceware version 81.85 WHQL.

With last year's mainstream and high-end video cards, we saw that NVIDIA had the slight edge in the game's built in stress test. We didn't test the Radeon X850XT PE, but we expect it to slot in with a frame rate a little higher than the X850XT, equaling or edging the GeForce 6800 Ultra.

The Radeon X800XL's average frame rate was lower than the GeForce 6800 GT's by two frames per second at both 1280x960 and 1024x768. However, the Radeon X800XL's minimum frame rate was two frames per second higher than the 6800 GT's at 1024x768. Interestingly, the GeForce 6600 GT with a 128MB frame buffer edged the Radeon X800GT with twice as much frame buffer and almost double the memory bandwidth.