PCIe Video Card Compilation

Introduction

We are not hardcore gamers here.  You all know that we are more into workstation performance and A/V HTPC design.  So as new video cards come out, how do we know which one is best for specified requirements?  Best in 3D up to a certain price or power consumption?  Best in HQV?  Well, as technology progresses, the answers continuously change as well.  In an attempt to maintain a record of various video cards' relative performance, we are going to continually update this article with new video cards and their test results. 

Tests, unless otherwise noted, were performed on the following platform:

The operating system is Windows XP Professional 64-bit Edition.  Latest drivers at the time were used.  For HQV tests, WMP9 was used.  For nVidia-based GPUs, PureVideo decoder 1.02.223 was also used for post-processing.

	Peak Power	Idle Power	3DMark 03	3DMark 05	3DMark 06	HQV	Notes	Images
ATI X1950XTX	214W	139W	18091	10521	5838	118	DX10-capable, but too big, too power hungry
2x ATI X1950XTX in CrossFire	339W	139W	30555	11713	7960	WNR	Very fast DX10, but too big, too power hungry, no DVD playback
GeCube X1650Pro	149W	94W	9824	5720	2651	118	Low power consumption, mediocre performance
GeCube X1650XT	149W	100W	11979	7462	3292	118	Low power consumption, slightly better performance than X1650Pro
Asus 8600GTS	143W	111W	16917	DNF	5265	130	Good performance, great video quality playback
Zogis 8400GS	126W	101W	4813	2852	1427	115	Very inexpensive, not enough muscle for even good video playback
Zotac 8800GT	173W	111W	31945	11655	7927	130	Best value by far.  Powerful 3D, low power, perfect HQV