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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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