Synthetic Benchmarks

As usual we start of the benchmark analysis by going through the different benchmark suites coming from Futuremark, and the discontinued AquaMark 3 program. These will provide a good indication on the game play of today's games. First we will start with AquaMark 3, followed by the different gaming benchmark programs from Futuremark such as 3DMark03, 3DMark05 and last but not least 3DMark06. We will reboot our system each time for each of the four synthetic API's used and leave all processes running in the background. We put the Sparkle GeForce 8600 GTS edition accelerator against the nearest competition from ATI, the Radeon X1950 PRO card provided by PowerColor, and analyze the performance figures. So let's just give it a go...

Massive AquaMark 3

One of the benchmark suite which was very popular and still is somehow, is known as AquaMark 3 and is a fully DirectX 9.0 compatible benchmark from Massive Development. Unfortunately the programmers, Massive Development, don't exist anymore but that doesn't mean it isn't a great tool. To be able to see how well a graphics card is performing under the challenging DirectX 9.0 environment, AquaMark 3 was developed. However it is not solely a DirectX 9.0 benchmark; if you are working with an older DirectX compatible graphics card, you will still be able to use it just with a lot of graphical features missing. Make no mistake, AquaMark 3 is a DirectX 9.0 benchmark, as it is based on a real game engine it has fallbacks to previous DirectX versions.

Benchmark Results - 1280x1024 - E6300 2.80GHz - 2GB RAM
	Radeon X1950 PRO 256MB	AquaMark 3 Score
0x AA/4x AF	575/1380MHz (Ref - Single)	97357
4x AA/16x AF	575/1380MHz (Ref - Single)	75291
	GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB	AquaMark 3 Score
0x AA/4x AF	675/2000MHz (Ref - Single)	117672
4x AA/16x AF	675/2000MHz (Ref - Single)	76736
Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better.

When looking at the AquaMark 3 results, we need to point at first of all that this is actually the oldest benchmark suite we have used and that it was designed with a game in mind. Having said that, we see that the Sparkle GeForce 8600 GTS does a lot better than the counterpart Radeon X1950 PRO hardware. Make no mistake though, as with AquaMark 3 the performance of the CPU is quite important next to the graphics card itself. Although it clearly shows that the unified shader architecture is doing quite well with older gaming engines. The main advantage however is the higher clock rates of the GeForce 8600 GTS, though having fewer pixel and shader capabilities.

Benchmark Results - 1600x1200 - E6300 2.80GHz - 2GB RAM
	Radeon X1950 PRO 256MB	AquaMark 3 Score
0x AA/4x AF	575/1380MHz (Ref - Single)	80012
4x AA/16x AF	575/1380MHz (Ref - Single)	64223
	GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB	AquaMark 3 Score
0x AA/4x AF	675/2000MHz (Ref - Single)	93374
4x AA/16x AF	675/2000MHz (Ref - Single)	57665
Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better.

Going a step further and increasing the gaming resolution we can see a similar result, but when the extra graphical features come into play like anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering the GeForce 8600 GTS is dropping much faster in terms of performance. Now taking into account of having only 32 stream processors against 36 pixel shaders it doesn't come as a real surprise. When anti-aliasing is enabled the clock speed of the core doesn't have such a big advantage any longer but then the raw power of the available pixel and vertex shaders is more important. And in that aspect the Radeon X1950 PRO graphics accelerator is superior to the GeForce 8600 GTS featuring only 32 stream processors though clocked a very high speed.

Futuremark 3DMark03

To continue we first go back to actually an older benchmark suite from Futuremark. By combining full DirectX 9.0a support with completely new tests and graphics, 3DMark03 continues the legacy of being the industry standard benchmark. The high quality game tests, image quality tests, sound tests and others give you an extremely accurate overview of your system's current gaming performance. So the synthetic analysis begins by taking a spin with 3DMark03 which is build around the DirectX 9.0 specifications, although still using quite some DirectX 8.1 features.

Benchmark Results - 1280x1024 - E6300 2.80GHz - 2GB RAM
	Radeon X1950 PRO 256MB	3DMark03 Score
0x AA/Optimal	575/1380MHz (Ref - Single)	13996
4x AA/8x AF	575/1380MHz (Ref - Single)	7934
	GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB	3DMark03 Score
0x AA/Optimal	675/2000MHz (Ref - Single)	14373
4x AA/8x AF	675/2000MHz (Ref - Single)	7811
Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better.

To compare our reported results we are using the Radeon X1950 PRO from PowerColor. Our config build around the Radeon X1950 PRO clocks down some outstanding scores, but when looking further to the Sparkle GeForce 8600 GTS it comes close can't really fully take down the PRO scores. As 3DMark03 is somehow CPU depending, the scores delivered by both cards are depending somehow a bit on the system itself and not only related to the graphics accelerator unit. However it clearly shows that the G84 based version from Sparkle does a very nice job and is even able to allow a higher anti-aliasing setting. Do keep in mind that the GeForce 8600 GTS is higher clocked in terms of processing, but features a lower bandwidth throughput...

Benchmark Results - 1600x1200 - E6300 2.80GHz - 2GB RAM
	Radeon X1950 PRO 256MB	3DMark03 Score
4x AA/8x AF	575/1380MHz (Ref - Single)	5686
	GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB	3DMark03 Score
4x AA/8x AF	675/2000MHz (Ref - Single)	5635
Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better.
Benchmark Results - 2560x1600 - E6300 2.80GHz - 2GB RAM
	Radeon X1950 PRO 256MB	3DMark03 Score
4x AA/8x AF	575/1380MHz (Ref - Single)	2678
	GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB	3DMark03 Score
4x AA/8x AF	675/2000MHz (Ref - Single)	2537
Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better.

Increasing the resolution gives another dimension on the performance results. When the gaming resolution is going up we can see that the GeForce 8600 GTS is trailing behind but a tiny difference. You got that right, some HD gaming input as well as we are now using one of these lovely widescreen 30" LCD displays that feature an awesome resolution of 2560x1600 to experience just that extra more. And actually NVIDIA is quite a fan of these HD resolutions as they call it the Extreme High Definition experience. Also at this extreme resolution, the GeForce 8600 GTS can't keep up and is slightly behind in performance. Once again we can say that this is rather due to having only 32 stream processors then to the unified shader technology.