Test Setup and Overclocking
Now I was hoping to put the Xabre 600 up against some of its closest competition, but unfortunatley we could not source the cards in time. So the Xabre 600 contests itself, I will use the Xabre 400 as a reference wherever possible. Although we have to remember it is only a reference, as too many factors are different for it to be a direct comparison. Lets have a look at the test system:
Components
- Abit IT7-Max2 V2.0
- Intel Pentium 4 2.26B ‘Northwood’ (133*17)
- 2 * 256mb Winbond PC3200 Memory (DDR 333, Cas 2, 7-2-2)
- SiS Xabre 600 Reference Card 64mb at 315/630
- Western Digital Caviar SE 80gb 7,200RPM IDE Drive
Software
- Windows XP Professional
- 3DMark 2001 SE
- Vulpine GLmark v1.1p
- Quake 3
- Unreal Tournament 2003
- Comanche 4
Overclocking
Due to the card being supplied with an overclocking utility I felt I couldn’t let this tool go to waste. So I had to see how far I could push the card from its stock settings of 315/315, so I tried upping the two sliders using them on the linked setting. I managed to run a 3dmark benchmark stable on 5 loops at 340/340 with no additional cooling, which I thought was quite impressive and gave a rather nice bonus of 400 3dmark points.
