During our benchmarking sessions we used the configuration listed below. Between our benchmarking sessions the only variable device was the video card being tested.

Hardware Configuration

• Motherboard: Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H (F8d BIOS)
• CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K
• CPU Cooler: Intel stock/AMD stock liquid cooling solution
• Memory: 4 GB DDR3-1866, two G.Skill Ripjaws XF3-14900CL9D-4GBXL memory modules
• Hard Disk Drive: Western Digital Black Caviar 1 TB (WD1001FALS, SATA-300, 7,200 rpm, 32 MB buffer)
• Video Monitor: Samsung Syncmaster 932BW
• Power Supply: Antec TruePower New 750 W

Operating System Configuration

• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
• NTFS
• Video resolution: 1440x900 60 Hz

Driver Versions

• AMD video driver version: Catalyst 12.4
• Intel Inf chipset driver version: 9.3.0.1019
• Lucid Virtu Universal MVP driver version: 2.1.113.22180

Software Used

• Battlefield 3
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution 
• DiRT3
• Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty – Patch 1.4.3

Error Margin

We adopted a 3% error margin. Thus differences below 3% cannot be considered relevant. In other words, products with a performance difference below 3% should be considered as having similar performance.