3DMark for Windows Launches; We Test It with Various Laptops
by Jarred Walton on February 5, 2013 5:00 AM ESTInitial Thoughts on 3DMark “2013”
First, let me say that while I understand the reasoning behind eliminating the year/version from the name, I’m going to generally refer to this release as 3DMark 2013, as there will inevitably be another 3DMark in a year or two. With that out of the way, how does this latest release stand up to previous iterations, and is it a useful addition to the benchmark repertoire?
No benchmark is ever perfect, and even “real world gaming benchmarks” can only tell part of the story. As long as we keep that thought forefront when looking at the latest 3DMark, the results are completely reasonable. With the overall scores using both the Graphics and Physics tests, it will always be beneficial to have a fast CPU and GPU working together for 3DMark rather than pairing a fast GPU with a mediocre CPU, but I can’t say that such an approach is wrong—no matter what some companies might try to say, there are always potential uses for more CPU power in games (physics and AI immediately come to mind), though not every game will need a ton of CPU performance.
In terms of advancing the state of the benchmarking industry, it’s good to see the demo modes (cool graphics with sound are more enticing to the average person than a pure graphics benchmark). I also like the addition of graphs that show performance, power, temperatures, etc., though I wish they worked on all of the hardware rather than only some of the platforms. There’s at least the potential to now use 3DMark on its own to do stress testing without running additional utilities (HWiNFO or similar) in the background.
What I want to see now is how the various tablet and smartphone offerings stack up in comparison to the laptops that I’ve tested. Some people have mused that ARM and the latest SoCs are going to kill off the low end laptop market, but we’re still a ways from that happening, at least from a performance perspective. As slow as HD 3000 can be in comparison to other discrete GPUs, it’s probably still faster than any of the currently shipping SoC GPUs, and HD 4000 is another 50-100% faster than HD 3000. They both also use far more power, but when an iPad 4 includes a battery that holds as much power as many budget laptops, we’re not exactly talking about an insurmountable gulf.
What I really wish we had was more than one of the three tests to run on SoCs. Fire Strike is obviously too much for even notebook GPUs right now, but Cloud Gate ought to be able to run on the better SoCs. Ice Storm on the other hand is running at frame rates over 1000 on a high-end desktop GPU, so if that’s the only point of comparison with the SoCs we’re missing quite a bit of detail. Regardless, it will be nice to have another cross-platform benchmark where we can gauge relative performance, and that looks to be exactly what 3DMark provides.
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Landspeeder - Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - link
Drawing a blank mate - ORB?Ryan Smith - Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - link
Futuremark's Online Results Database.Landspeeder - Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - link
perfect - thanks Gents.carage - Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - link
Have you considered notebooks with the possibility of external video upgrades?I have a ThinkPad W520 connected to a ViDock via Express Card which houses a GTX 670 4GB.
The scores I got so far:
ICE STORM: 97109
(Beats the Alienware with 7970M)
CLOUD GATE: 15874
(Slightly slower than 7970M)
FIRE STRIKE: 5351
(Even beats the gaming desktop 7950)
Notmyusualid - Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - link
M18x R2.i7 3920XM, 16GB CAS10 RAM, ONE 7970M. (Cross-fire equipped, but it locked my system solid the moment the DX11 tests began).
Left number is my Inspiron 17R SE's result, right is the UX51VZ:
Ice Storm:
146723
273526
55947
Cloud Gate:
18157
32362
7159
Fire Strike:
4467
4807
10467
It was kind of fun to watch the tests, but a bore after a 3rd time, due to Crossfire issues. Would be nice to run ONE test, but I guess they need to make money, eh?
Will update when Crossfire works...
Notmyusualid - Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - link
Opps, ignore the cut & paste error there from the other poster. I have no 17R, nor UX51VZ.Its late in Asia....
JarredWalton - Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - link
Interesting... looks like even with the 3920XM you're still getting slower results on Fire Strike than the M17x R4. What drivers are you running?Notmyusualid - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
RE: I don't see how you saw my results as slower, so here are the comparisons, side-by-side, with data from your graphs, for all, including the Fire Strike tests.M18x R2.
i7 3920XM, 16GB CAS10 RAM, ONE 7970M. (Cross-fire equipped, but it locked my system solid the moment the DX11 tests began).
Left number is your M17x R4's results, right is the my M18x R2 on ONE 7970M card:
Ice Storm:
85072 / 146723 #
116561 /273526 #
43727 / 55947 #
Cloud Gate:
16729 / 18157 #
30624 / 32362 *
6491 / 7159 #
Fire Strike:
4332 / 4467 *
4696 / 4807 *
8910 / 10467 #
So to me, I have the M17x system beat in all respects.
# = My system besting everything on your graphs.
* = Your HD7950 showing significant gain(s), over the laptops.
Operating System is Win 8 (Bloatware) x64.
Graphics drivers are AMD_Catalyst_13.2_Beta3. (13.1 didn't install at all). No CAP file for this one yet I don't think.
Now to try the Crossfire again...
jtd871 - Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - link
Jarred,Moar data for you...
i7-3630QM 3.3GHz
GT675M 4GB, 9.18.13.623 (306.97 Driver Package)
8GB 1600 RAM
Win 7 Pro
Samsung 830 SSD (if that matters)
3DMark Basic
Screen Resolution (if that matters) 1920x1080
Scenario: Score / Graphics / Physics / Combined
Ice Storm: 80831 / 109914 / 41967
Cloud Gate: 12475 / 18162 / 5952
Fire Storm: 2091 / 2220 / 8146 / 816
MrSpadge - Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - link
Wow, seems like FM put some real effort into this one. It's more than "just another 3DMark" :)And regarding the currently missing diagnosis information: I think they should partner with some hardware diagnostic tool vendor, like the Argus Monitor team. Whatever FM needs to implement, they already did it. Fair deal: FM integrates their diagnostic in exchange for advertising that they do so.
There's also more potential in the enhanced result analysis and the nice graphs. And interesting point would be the time between frames. Give a mean and standard deviation and we could judge which system is smoother. Give us a graph and we could easily identify micro stutter.