Futuremark's Latest Attempt: 3DMark06 Tested
by Josh Venning on January 18, 2006 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Introduction
Here at Anandtech, performance testing is an important aspect in how we review our hardware. When we are looking at graphics cards, game benchmarks give us a good idea of a card's performance capabilities. We are always interested in new ways to test graphics hardware, and while we often use game benchmarks, there are other tools out there that can be useful for testing computer hardware. One of these programs is 3DMark, a popular benchmarking tool developed by Futuremark, and today marks the release of their latest version of this program, 3DMark06.
There is a kind of interconnectivity between hardware and software wherein each tends to affect and be affected by the other, specifically regarding gaming technology advancements. There are times where certain games or software come about, which test the limits or surpass the capabilities of the graphics hardware at that time. Currently though, we are seeing the opposite situation, where incredibly powerful graphics cards and gaming setups (i.e. SLI, Crossfire) surpass the system requirements of even the most demanding games with the highest settings enabled.
While perhaps frustrating for some people, scenarios like these are are generally good news for the end user, as it creates opportunities for major advancements to occur in the technology of games or game hardware. Right now, the hardware that is available is prompting advancements in game development, and we can't easily predict what types of games we might see in the near or semi-near future. Tools like 3DMark are useful because they give us the ability to test hardware in very different and precise ways that current games cannot.
That being said, 3DMark is essentially a benchmarking tool, and there are limits to its usefulness. We'll talk more about this and run some benchmarks across several graphics boards to give us an idea of how this program stresses our cards. We'll also be talking about some new features in this edition of 3DMark, which look impressive, particularly the High Dynamic Range and Shader Model 3.0 additions.
Here at Anandtech, performance testing is an important aspect in how we review our hardware. When we are looking at graphics cards, game benchmarks give us a good idea of a card's performance capabilities. We are always interested in new ways to test graphics hardware, and while we often use game benchmarks, there are other tools out there that can be useful for testing computer hardware. One of these programs is 3DMark, a popular benchmarking tool developed by Futuremark, and today marks the release of their latest version of this program, 3DMark06.
There is a kind of interconnectivity between hardware and software wherein each tends to affect and be affected by the other, specifically regarding gaming technology advancements. There are times where certain games or software come about, which test the limits or surpass the capabilities of the graphics hardware at that time. Currently though, we are seeing the opposite situation, where incredibly powerful graphics cards and gaming setups (i.e. SLI, Crossfire) surpass the system requirements of even the most demanding games with the highest settings enabled.
While perhaps frustrating for some people, scenarios like these are are generally good news for the end user, as it creates opportunities for major advancements to occur in the technology of games or game hardware. Right now, the hardware that is available is prompting advancements in game development, and we can't easily predict what types of games we might see in the near or semi-near future. Tools like 3DMark are useful because they give us the ability to test hardware in very different and precise ways that current games cannot.
That being said, 3DMark is essentially a benchmarking tool, and there are limits to its usefulness. We'll talk more about this and run some benchmarks across several graphics boards to give us an idea of how this program stresses our cards. We'll also be talking about some new features in this edition of 3DMark, which look impressive, particularly the High Dynamic Range and Shader Model 3.0 additions.
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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.