Vista 32 vs. Vista 64 shootout – PC Gaming

Test Configuration

Test Configuration – Hardware

*Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550S (engineering sample reference 2.83 GHz; overclocked to 4.0 GHz – i.e. 470 FSB).
* ASUS Rampage Formula (Intel X48 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 2.0 specification; CrossFire 16x+16x).
* 4 GB DDR2-PC8500 RAM (2×2 GB, dual-channel at PC6400 speeds)
* ATi Radeon 4870-X2 (2GB, reference clocks) byVisionTek
* GTX280 (1 GB, reference clocks) by BFGTech
* ATi Radeon 4870 (1GB, reference clocks) by ASUS
* Onboard SupremeFX-II (ASUS P5e Deluxe motherboard daughter-card)
* 2 – 250 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 hard drives

Test Configuration – Software

* ATi Catalyst 9-3; highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver, Catalyst AI set to “Standard”
* GeForce 182.08; high quality filtering, optimizations off, LOD clamp enabled
* Windows Vista 32-bit SP1; very latest updates
* Windows Vista 64-bit SP1; very latest updates
* DirectX March 2008.
* All games patched to their latest versions.

Test Configuration – Settings

* vsync is off in the control panel and is never set in-game.
* 4xAA enabled in all games and “forced” in Catalyst Control Center for UT3; all in-game settings at “maximum” or “ultra” with 16xAF always applied
* All results show average, minimum and maximum frame rates except as noted.
* Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
* Vista 32 and Vista 64, all DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths