Testing (continued):

Real World 3D Gaming

To test the real world gaming experience you can expect from the G33T-M2 I used two games which are known to stress modern systems. F.E.A.R. has been out for a while, but it is still graphically intensive and can stress a system quite easily. STALKER is a newer game and tends to require a better system to run it at the best possible frame rates.


Both of these games provide a good picture of what you can expect from the systems integrated GMA 3100 if you use it for gaming. It is not meant to be used for high end gaming, however an occasional game would be fine, just don't expect to get the best frame rates.

Vista Windows Experience Index:

Microsoft has created a simple tool that rates a system to indicate how well it will perform with Windows Vista. This rating takes five different components of your system into account, each of the five are given a score, and the lowest individual score of the five is presented as the overall base score. The five components include: Processor (Calculations per second), Memory (Memory operations per second), Graphics (Desktop performance for Windows Aero), Gaming Graphics (3D Business and Gaming graphics performance), and Primary Hard Disk (Disk data transfer rate).


New software designed for Windows Vista will reference the minimum recommended score for the software to run properly. So, if your system is rated at 3.2, you could safely run a piece of software rated for 3.0.

With the 7900GTO installed in the G33T-M2 motherboard, the lowest score was the processor at 5.3 (everything else was a 5.9). However, when I used the integrated graphics, the graphics went from 5.9 to 3.6, while the gaming graphics went from 5.9 to 2.8. A composite score of 5.3 is much different than one of 2.8!