Aquamark3: Accurate Benchmarking for Old and New (DirectX9) Apps?

Test Setup

We replaced our previous test system based on an Athlon XP 2700+ and nForce2 with a faster system. We now use a Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz CPU (FSB800) running on a ASUS P4P800-Deluxe with an Intel i865PE chipset. The DDR400 CL-2 memory comes from Kingston.

Since we noticed big differences in image quality in the NVIDIA drivers, we tested several versions for the DirectX 9 cards. We used the v44.03 from Mai 2003, the actual released driver v45.23 and the new v51.75 beta version that was sent to the press by NVIDIA for the use with DirectX9 benchmark tests. For ATI we used the actual released Catalyst v3.7 as well as Catalyst v3.4 from Mai.

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General Hardware
MotherboardASUS P4P800 Deluxe, Intel i865PE chipset
ProcessorIntel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz (FSB800)
RAM2x 256 MB Kingston HyperX DDR400CL2 / 6-2-2-2
Drivers & Configuration
Graphic CardsNVIDIA GF FX5900 Ultra (Reference)NVIDIA GF FX5600 Ultra FC (Reference)NVIDIA GF FX5200 Ultra (Reference)ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256 MB (Reference)ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB (Reference)ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128 MB (Hercules)
Graphics DriverDetonator FX v44.03Detonator FX v45.23Detonator FX v51.75ATI Catalyst v3.4ATI Catalyst v3.7
Chipset DriverIntel
DirectX Version9.0b
OSWindows XP Professional SP1