Futuremark's Latest Attempt: 3DMark06 Tested
by Josh Venning on January 18, 2006 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
As we've said before, 3DMark is a somewhat specialized benchmarking tool with the ability to measure a lot of different aspects of a gaming system, and while it may not be best suited for testing performance between cards, there are many other things this program is useful for.
3DMark06 is quite useful for doing more focused comparisons with hardware components. For instance, comparing 3DMark results between a card and an overclocked version of itself can give a good idea of how a given card's clock speeds scale. Another use would be for testing drivers and to determine what kind of improvements certain features may have had between updates. We typically use looped game benchmarks when testing the stability of a graphics card while overclocking, but 3DMark would make a good tool for this as well. With 3DMark's demos, any graphical tearing or visual anomalies would very easily be seen. By taking screen shots, 3DMark would also be a great tool for comparing image quality in Anti-Aliasing or filtering for example.
There are likely many other uses for this program, which we can't mention here, and there is no doubt that 3DMark will remain a popular benchmarking program. Our uses for this program mostly involve more specific feature comparisons rather than those between the performance of different cards. Again, real-world tests show how 3DMark test scores don't really reflect actual performance in a game, particularly when you consider that different games will always favor different graphics hardware.
The bottom line is that a graphics card was made for playing games. Futuremark has developed a nice tool with excellent graphical elements in this latest version of 3DMark, which hopefully game makers will aspire to achieve in future games. Regardless of how you use it, 3DMark06 shows off some very impressive graphics and is a definite improvement over 3DMark05 both in visual quality and in the types of performance tests used. We certainly won't be focusing on 3DMark scores in future graphics card comparisons, but we may see some of the feature set tests or image quality comparisons pop up down the road.
As we've said before, 3DMark is a somewhat specialized benchmarking tool with the ability to measure a lot of different aspects of a gaming system, and while it may not be best suited for testing performance between cards, there are many other things this program is useful for.
3DMark06 is quite useful for doing more focused comparisons with hardware components. For instance, comparing 3DMark results between a card and an overclocked version of itself can give a good idea of how a given card's clock speeds scale. Another use would be for testing drivers and to determine what kind of improvements certain features may have had between updates. We typically use looped game benchmarks when testing the stability of a graphics card while overclocking, but 3DMark would make a good tool for this as well. With 3DMark's demos, any graphical tearing or visual anomalies would very easily be seen. By taking screen shots, 3DMark would also be a great tool for comparing image quality in Anti-Aliasing or filtering for example.
There are likely many other uses for this program, which we can't mention here, and there is no doubt that 3DMark will remain a popular benchmarking program. Our uses for this program mostly involve more specific feature comparisons rather than those between the performance of different cards. Again, real-world tests show how 3DMark test scores don't really reflect actual performance in a game, particularly when you consider that different games will always favor different graphics hardware.
The bottom line is that a graphics card was made for playing games. Futuremark has developed a nice tool with excellent graphical elements in this latest version of 3DMark, which hopefully game makers will aspire to achieve in future games. Regardless of how you use it, 3DMark06 shows off some very impressive graphics and is a definite improvement over 3DMark05 both in visual quality and in the types of performance tests used. We certainly won't be focusing on 3DMark scores in future graphics card comparisons, but we may see some of the feature set tests or image quality comparisons pop up down the road.
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Skiplives - Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - link
3DMark06 actually has a CPU test function that runs a test at 640x480 and 2fps. This should take out the effect of any card able to run 3DMark06. So you could test them. I don't know that you can make a definite conclusion as the test will run multithreaded - and I don't know how many multi-threaded games we will see for this current crop of cards.The ATI cards take a big hit in the testing because they can't run 24 bit depth stencil textures. 24 bit DSTs are optional for DX9 and ATI only supports the required 16 bit DSTs. On the other hand, the reason there are no results with AA enabled is that the nVidia cards don't do muntipoint blending and multisampling AA at the same time, so 3DMark06 doesn't report a score.
Extremetech did an article about the technical issues (no real testing like Josh did) http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1912131...">here.
Regards,
Chris
superkdogg - Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - link
"There are likely many other uses for this program which we can't mention here"Ummm, what's he talking about?
ViRGE - Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - link
3dMark has a number of "Feature Tests" that test specific features such as fill rate, VS, PS, CPU, and triangle performance. These tests are outside of the "Game Tests" run to find a 3dMark score, hence they're effectively extra uses for the program. Also don't discount 3dMark for being a really good diagnostic program, both to determine if a rig is stable, and if it's performing at levels it should be at(thanks to the large comparison DB).Rampage - Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - link
In the 2nd performance graph, "Shader Modle 2.0" should be Shader Model 2.0.Rampage - Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - link
I would like to add that this "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. "is very true.
3dmark is meaningless, besides for competition. Which could be done in a more meaningful sense (real gaming benchmark comparisons).
Its one of the biggest crocks going today. Go upgrade your video cards so you can hit the magic 10,000 again with this years 3dmark.. um.. woot?
I pity the fool who "plays" 3dmark.
theslug - Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - link
Agreed, the number of 3dmarks is basically useless. However, it's a good benchmark for yourself so you can see if a certain tweak you made to your system helped or not.Phiro - Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - link
Not true, all you are going to do is tell if the tweaks/changes you made to your system helped or hurt 3DMark06, not Game X Y or Z.There's just too many ways to develop at this point for this artificial benchmark to be meaningful.
DerekWilson - Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - link
fixedRampage - Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - link
Whoa that was fast!gordon151 - Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - link
Pretty benchmark and looks to favour the x1600xt pretty nicely.