We decided to test the DirectX 10 capabilities of the cards with World in Conflict and Unreal Tournament 3; both very popular games that were launched last year. In addition, we used Quake 4 to test the OpenGL performance of the cards. Games were tested at 1280 x 1024 as this is the native resolution of 17" and 19" LCD panels which most 8600GTS users would be using at this point in time.

World in Conflict
In World in Conflict, the 8800GS pulls ahead of the pack and delivers very playable framerates where a 8600GTS would falter.

Unreal Tournament 3
In Unreal Tournament 3, the 8800GS delivers nearly twice the framerate of the 8800GS and edges out the HD3850 by a bit.

Quake 4
NVIDIA GPUs have traditionally shined in OpenGL games but the 8800GS is showing an exceptional lead here in Quake 4.