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We used Vista to run all of our benchmarks. Although performance in most of these games would be superior in XP, Vista has the advantage of supporting DX10, which we wanted to try out, so we went with it.

As for drivers, our HD 3850 and HD 2900 XT used Catalyst 7.11 drivers. For the NVIDIA cards, we used Forceware 169.12, with the exception of the XFX 8800 GTS 512 and EN8800 GTS 512. Every benchmark of both of the new GTS 512's used Forceware release 169.06, except for Crysis. For Crysis, a driver (Forceware 169.21) was released yesterday afternoon (Monday, Decemeber 10, 2007), which reportedly brought SLI 8800 GTS 512 support to the table for Crysis, so we had to try it out.  

Here are the games we benched, with some information on our chosen settings:

Bioshock: For this benchmark, all of the Detail settings were set to 'High'. All of the graphic option switches were set to 'On', with the exception of the following three settings: Vsync, Windowed mode, and Force Global Lighting. We used FRAPS to measure framerate performance. The FRAPS run was 138 seconds, triggered from pulling the switch in the sub at game's beginning. The sub's dive involves many big models moving around, which should strain the GPU's and be a good measure of the game's engine.

Call of Juarez: We used the stand-alone Call of Juarez DX10 benchmarking program for these results. For our AA testing, we used a setting of 2x.

Crysis: These benchmarks were performed using 'fly-by' GPU test found within the single-player pre-release demo version of the game. All graphic settings were on 'Medium.' For AA, we used a setting of 4x. DX10 mode was used.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars: This is the first time we used this id FPS shooter as a benchmark. The following settings were used: medium texture qualities, normal lighting quality, high shader effects, high terrian and foliage quality, ultra shader level, and shadows were on.

Unreal Tournament 3:  We tested the game using a fly-through of the vechicle capture-the-flag map 'Suspense.'angriLa (map) running for 90 seconds. Details were set to 'High', and a AF setting of 4x was used.

World In Conflict: We used the built-in benchmark of the demo version of this game. We ran the benchmark in DX9 rendering mode, with a 'High' level of quality. For the AA testing, we used a setting of 4x, and a setting of 16x for AF.

If you would like any further information about our benchmark settings, feel free to ask us in the forums.