Futuremark's Latest Attempt: 3DMark06 Tested
by Josh Venning on January 18, 2006 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Performance Tests
We ran several tests with the latest version of 3DMark to see what kind of results we would get across a range of NVIDIA and ATI cards. There are a number of different tests that 3DMark can perform to stress different aspects of the system, but the three tests that we will be focusing on here are Shader Model 2.0 graphics, HDR/Shader Model 3.0 graphics, and the overall score. Here is what we tested:
NVIDIA 6600 GT
NVIDIA 6800 GS
NVIDIA 7800 GT
NVIDIA 7800 GTX
NVIDIA 7800 GTX 512
ATI X800 GTO
ATI X1300 Pro
ATI X1600 XT
ATI X1800 XL
ATI X1800 XT
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum/SLI motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 Processor
2x512MB OCZ 2-2-2-6 1T DDR400 RAM
Seagate 7200.7 120 GB Hard Drive
OCZ 600 W PowerStream Power Supply
The 3DMark06 benchmark is very straightforward. There are different settings that can be changed such as resolution and Anti-Aliasing, and clicking "Run 3DMark" will run the demos back-to-back and display the results when finished. For these tests, we chose the default resolution of 1280X1024 (no AA or AF).
(Note that in the HDR/SM3.0 graph, the X800 GTO is not included as it is incapable of rendering these effects.)
We can see by the graphs that 3DMark's graphics tests favor NVIDIA hardware over ATI, which is a further illustration of why 3DMark isn't really the best program for performance testing between cards. We know that different games tend to do better or worse on different hardware depending on the way the game was made, so a tool like 3DMark won't necessarily determine which card would be best suited for a specific game. This is an important fact for users in the market for a new card to realize before they spend their hard-earned money.
3DMark06 is a very stressful benchmark and as could be expected, some of the less powerful cards ran the demos very slowly. Because the graphics are so intensive, the effects were quite stunning, especially on the high end cards like the 7800 GTX (512) and the X1800 XT. During the firefly scenes, the warm glow of the fireflies in the night created intricate, hypnotic reflections of the foliage, and the brilliant white of the snow and sun in the arctic outpost demo at the end were striking. But at the end of our testing, we are mostly left with shallow beauty rather than a deep, meaningful connection. The overall 3DMark scores don't really give us much more information than we already have; other than simply letting us know what hardware runs 3DMark better.
We ran several tests with the latest version of 3DMark to see what kind of results we would get across a range of NVIDIA and ATI cards. There are a number of different tests that 3DMark can perform to stress different aspects of the system, but the three tests that we will be focusing on here are Shader Model 2.0 graphics, HDR/Shader Model 3.0 graphics, and the overall score. Here is what we tested:
NVIDIA 6600 GT
NVIDIA 6800 GS
NVIDIA 7800 GT
NVIDIA 7800 GTX
NVIDIA 7800 GTX 512
ATI X800 GTO
ATI X1300 Pro
ATI X1600 XT
ATI X1800 XL
ATI X1800 XT
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum/SLI motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 Processor
2x512MB OCZ 2-2-2-6 1T DDR400 RAM
Seagate 7200.7 120 GB Hard Drive
OCZ 600 W PowerStream Power Supply
The 3DMark06 benchmark is very straightforward. There are different settings that can be changed such as resolution and Anti-Aliasing, and clicking "Run 3DMark" will run the demos back-to-back and display the results when finished. For these tests, we chose the default resolution of 1280X1024 (no AA or AF).
(Note that in the HDR/SM3.0 graph, the X800 GTO is not included as it is incapable of rendering these effects.)
We can see by the graphs that 3DMark's graphics tests favor NVIDIA hardware over ATI, which is a further illustration of why 3DMark isn't really the best program for performance testing between cards. We know that different games tend to do better or worse on different hardware depending on the way the game was made, so a tool like 3DMark won't necessarily determine which card would be best suited for a specific game. This is an important fact for users in the market for a new card to realize before they spend their hard-earned money.
3DMark06 is a very stressful benchmark and as could be expected, some of the less powerful cards ran the demos very slowly. Because the graphics are so intensive, the effects were quite stunning, especially on the high end cards like the 7800 GTX (512) and the X1800 XT. During the firefly scenes, the warm glow of the fireflies in the night created intricate, hypnotic reflections of the foliage, and the brilliant white of the snow and sun in the arctic outpost demo at the end were striking. But at the end of our testing, we are mostly left with shallow beauty rather than a deep, meaningful connection. The overall 3DMark scores don't really give us much more information than we already have; other than simply letting us know what hardware runs 3DMark better.
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neogodless - Thursday, January 19, 2006 - link
The future is here...I think the generation of games reflected by the 3DMark predictions should be benchmarked side-by-side the various flavors of 3DMark to see how much validity their predictions held.
i.e. Benchmark 3DMark05 or 3DMark03 against current games, 3DMark2001SE against games from 2? years ago... that sort of thing.
Or has this been done by someone?
Wellsoul2 - Thursday, January 19, 2006 - link
The CPU part seems to be a total joke.I saw very little difference between my XP2800 and Opteron 148.
Pretty much negligible, where in games I saw 10FPS.
MrSmurf - Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - link
What a horribly, boring benchmark. I paid for 2k5 but not this one. The last two CPU tests should be measured in seconds per frame instead of frames per second.I nearly fell asleep when it was running on my X800PRO... I'm not even going to bother with my SM3.0 machines... boring + more tests = no thanks.
stephenbrooks - Thursday, January 19, 2006 - link
I got a nice 1418 score which means "everything was really, really slow!" on an X800XL.Never mind though, I suppose at the rate the cards are coming along this might work decently in a couple of years time. They have to raise the bar somehow and I think this is probably quite a good benchmark but the hardware it's intended for barely exists yet.
alcalde - Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - link
It took hours to download via bittorrent, and when I finally ran it, my impression was "Same as last year's, but slower".My (non-aggressively) overclocked AMD 3800+ X2 and 800 GTO2 got 2204 3DMarks, without performing the HDR/SM3.0 tests. I must say it was quite disturbing to have plunked down money I've been saving for years in Nov. to build a new machine to replace my antique PC, only to see a benchmark running like a slideshow once again by January. :-) And I'd just run the F.E.A.R. demo on it last night, too....
nv40 - Thursday, January 19, 2006 - link
There are several outcome from PCDVD @ TWNhttp://forum.pcdvd.com.tw/showthread.php?t=582913">http://forum.pcdvd.com.tw/showthread.php?t=582913
Dual core CPU score almost double in comparison to single core
Opteron 2.9G dual core score 2200, Opteron 2.9G single score 1110, a 1.99x increase
Furthermore, Intel score abnormally high to AMD, may due to hyperthreading
P4 3.0G HT (prescott) score 900 while as Athlon 64 2.5G also result in 900(san diego)
Additionally, old K7 also score desociated with real gaming,
K7 2.2G score 725 which is higher than K8 1.8G at 660, but we know it never happen in real world..
So, 3D mark 05 make everything out of reality, but 3D mark 06 still have "unreal" CPU score.
shabby - Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - link
Ya the cpu test was pretty pointless, i think i got like 5 frames per minute!Btw i scored 900 with a gf6800nu.
Souka - Thursday, January 19, 2006 - link
Took 12min to download via my T3Tossed onto my laptop..T42 Pentium M 1.7ghz and Radeon 9800 w/64mb 0-1fps...stopped it after 5 min
tossed onto my desktop.. Pentium 4HT @2.8 and GF4 AGP 6800 w/128....0-1fps...stopped it after 5 min
Wow...what a piece. Yeah, its the demo, but still.
e4te - Thursday, January 19, 2006 - link
The cup test is capped at 2 fps I'm pretty sure.e4te - Thursday, January 19, 2006 - link
hehe cpu