Legion Hardware

Test System Specs

Hardware
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3.00GHz (LGA775)

- x2 Kingston HyperX 2GB PC2-8500 Module(s)
- x2 Kingston HyperX 2GB PC3-10600 Module(s)

- Seagate 500GB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA300)

- ASUS Radeon HD 4850 (512MB) Crossfire
- ASUS Radeon HD 4850 (512MB)

- ASUS P5E3 Premium - Intel X48 (PCIe 2.0 16x Single Card)
- ASUS P5K3 Deluxe - Intel P35 (PCIe 1.0 16x - PCIe 1.0 4x)
- Gigabyte EP45-DS4 - Intel P45 (PCIe 2.0 16x - PCIe 2.0 4x)
- ASUS Blitz Extreme - Intel P35 (PCIe 1.0 8x - PCIe 1.0 8x)
- Gigabyte X38T-DQ6 - Intel X38 (PCIe 2.0 16x - PCIe 2.0 16x)
- Gigabyte EP45-DS4 - Intel P45 (PCIe 2.0 8x - PCIe 2.0 8x)
- ASUS P5E3 Premium - Intel X48 (PCIe 2.0 16x - PCIe 2.0 16x)

Software
- Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit)
- ATI Catalyst 8.7 Beta
- Intel System Driver 9.0.0.1009

Looking at the 3Dmark Vantage results we see huge performance gains when going from a single Radeon HD 4850 graphics card to two in Crossfire mode. However what is interesting here is that there is just a 17% performance difference between the old P35 chipset using its native PCI Express 1.0 (16x/4x) configuration and the X48. While a 17% performance gain is quite substantial, I have to admit that we were expecting more. The P45, X38 and X48 chipsets all using their native PCI Express configurations delivered very similar performance in 3Dmark Vantage, so it will be interesting to see if this is the case in real-world gaming.