3DMark 2006

[FantasticRhino]

Out of curiosity I went back to the earlier versions and tried them. Here are the results:

3DMark 03 - 5827
3DMark 05 - 2796
3DMark 06 - 599

I find it interesting that between 03 and 05, a 2 year period, the performance expectation has dropped about 2x from 5827 to 2796. But from 05 to 06, a 1 year period, I have a score that has dropped nearly 5x from 2796 to 599.

[bigtabs]

That will be due to the 256Mb memory requirement and the strain of 1280x1024 on an older card card. Also you do not have SM3.0 support. In previous tests your card has met the requirements therefore scored better.

[CreamyPoo]

This is what I got:

3d marks score: 1320
SM 2.0 score: 652
CPU score: 901

Athlon 64 3300+ 2.4Ghz, Ati x700pro 256mb oc'd 450/500, 512mb pc3200

[troyboy30]

man i feel better hanging around you guys than when I'm reading that monthly edition of maximumpc! lol

3dmark05 was 6052 with cat 5.13
3dmark06 is 2049 with cat 6.1
(sm2 - 1052 / cpu - 1048)

p4 3.6 925x Ex
800mhz fsb
2g DDR2 533 PC24200
ati x800xt pci-e

[ontarian_frog]

Something I have noticed is that Intel cpus perform better than AMD cpus on in 3dmark06.

I am of course talking of course of the single core cpus. that might attributed to intel's hyperthreading technology. My cpu is a 3800+ and scored 947. troyboy30's cpu is a 3.6 and outperformed me.

Surely, 3dmark06 has been optimized to run better on dual core cpus and it is probably a good thing. we can now truely see how a pentium cpu with hyperthreading can perform even without having dual cores....

Imagine if games were designed to work with dual cpus. AMD would probably not even be selling single cores to gamers anymore.

[Stryker]

Just downloaded 3D Mark 06 and installed it. When I click on the "Run 3DMark" button or on the "Demo..." button, the screen blacks out and the monitor light changes colour fro mgreen to orange. Generally, this means that either there is no signal or an unsupported resolution was attempted. Repeatedly pressing ESC brings it back to the desktop, so it is not like the system froze or anything.

OK, my monitor is an old ViewSonic that *does* support 1280x1024, but only at 60Hz. Does 3DMark 06 try any other refresh rate, like 75Hz or something? If so, is there any way in which I can force it to use either 1280x1024 at 60Hz or lower the screen resolution to 1024x768?

My rig is in the sig, I am using the official 81.98 drivers and there is no overclock on any system component. 3DMark itself reported that my DirectX is up-to-date. Any suggestions?

[Spriggan_X]

I've noticed that a 6600gt and a x1600xt beat the living daylights out of a x800xt, which is because of the shader model 3, I think 3dmark06 is too retarded and is a over rated benchmarking product now.

Moderator Edit:

Please don't attempt to swear in posts, even if it's asterisked out. I've changed your "bad word" to the word "daylights" as it fitted. Cheers, deltd

[Danny]

Originally Posted by Spriggan_X

I've noticed that a 6600gt and a x1600xt beat the living daylights out of a x800xt, which is because of the shader model 3, I think 3dmark06 is too retarded and is a over rated benchmarking product now.

Correct. 3dmark isnt only about performance, but graphics too. I, however, do not like the fact tht 6600GT gets more points than the X800XT, that is a card, at the very least, twice as fast. Anyways... as so many other say - only real games are the real benchmarks for gamers.

[FantasticRhino]

Danny - Regarding the differences between the 6600GT and the X800XT in terms of supported Shader Model versions etc. Seems that 3DMark06 uses SM3.0 to get that performance boost and for those cards, Nvidia supported it earlier than ATI. While I do agree it is not good to send the message to an X800XT owner that your video card is "obsolete" (due to a lower score). I do agree that baselining the standards level is a good thing. This means that to be competitive in the market and to make better games possible, a certain minimum level of technology should be the norm at any given time. In this case, 3DMark06 is saying that SM3.0 should be a requirement so if you ARE going to buy a new card in the near future (within 6 months to a year), you better make sure it has SM3.0 support. Just one example, but I think that high profile synthetic benchmarks like this really help to ensure companies like ATI and Nvidia keep offering the best they can to consumers (even if the rate that new GPU technology is going is a little quick in my book).

[bisby]

indeed. if you were benchmarking cars, for getting from place to place, a clunker might score almost as high as a brand new ferrari. But when you throw in tests for the special features or looks, the ferrari will always win... The X800 series does a marvelous job rendering pictures, but if you want the latest features in SM3 (which is clearly become industry standard now) you will need a newer ATI card or equal nVidia card.