Our testing methods
All tests were run three times, and their results were averaged, using the following test systems.
| Processor | Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0GHz | ||
| Front-side bus | HT 16-bit/1GHz downstream HT 16-bit/1GHz upstream | ||
| Motherboard | Abit KV8 Pro | ||
| North bridge | VIA K8T800 Pro | ||
| South bridge | VIA VT8237 | ||
| Chipset driver | VIA Hyperion 4.51 | ||
| Memory size | 512MB (1 DIMM) | ||
| Memory type | Corsair XMS3500 DDR SDRAM at 400MHz and 2-7-3-3 timings | ||
| Graphics | ATI Radeon 9550 128MB (128-bit) | NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra 128MB | S3 DeltaChrome S4 Pro 128MB |
| Graphics driver | Catalyst 4.7 | ForceWare 56.72 | 6.14.10.1668-15.10.04.c |
| Storage | Western Digital WD360GD 10,000RPM Serial ATA hard drive | ||
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 and DirectX 9.0b | ||
To put the S4 Pro's performance in perspective, I've rounded up ATI's Radeon 9550 and NVIDIA's GeForce FX 5200 Ultra for comparison.
We used the following versions of our test applications:
- Far Cry 1.2 with TR demos.
- Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory with demo0000.dm_82
- Unreal Tournament 2004 v3236 with trdemo1.demo4
- Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow v1.3
- Need for Speed: Underground demo
- FutureMark 3DMark03 Build 340
- ShaderMark 2.0
The test systems' Windows desktop was set at 1024x768 in 32-bit color at a 75Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests. All of the 3D gaming tests used the high detail image quality settings except where otherwise noted.
All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.
