Synthetic Benchmarks

Going for our usual approach, 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 3DMark06. We will reboot our system each time for each of the synthetic API's used and leave all processes running in the background. We put the Gainward BLISS 8400 GS edition accelerator against the nearest counterpart from ATI, so the Radeon HD 2400 PRO card provided by Sapphire, 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 - E6700 2.66GHz - 2GB RAM
	Radeon HD 2400 PRO 256MB	AquaMark 3 Score
0x AA/Optimal	525/800MHz (Ref - Single)	N/A
4x AA/8x AF	525/800MHz (Ref - Single)	N/A
8x AA/16x AF	525/800MHz (Ref - Single)	N/A
	BLISS 8600 GS 256MB	AquaMark 3 Score
0x AA/Optimal	459/800MHz (Ref - Single)	35537
4x AA/8x AF	459/800MHz (Ref - Single)	22647
8x AA/16x AF	459/800MHz (Ref - Single)	15972
Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better.

We always have to start somewhere and since this is a low-end graphics card we are still included the AquaMark 3 program to look at the benchmark results. Yes we know, this is only for the Gainward card that we have the figures and this is due to the fact that since the Radeon HD 2000 series we can't AquaMark 3 to run until the end to report the score. That means we are somehow limited to the results delivered by the BLISS 8400 GS video card. The only comparison we can draw is towards the GeForce 8600 series, meaning the GTS version and doing se we have to say the results are at least twice as low. That should be a big surprise as the G86 chip used on the GeForce 8400 series has twice as less stream processors.

Benchmark Results - 1600x1200 - E6700 2.66GHz - 2GB RAM
	Radeon HD 2400 PRO 256MB	AquaMark 3 Score
0x AA/Optimal	525/800MHz (Ref - Single)	N/A
4x AA/8x AF	525/800MHz (Ref - Single)	N/A
8x AA/16x AF	525/800MHz (Ref - Single)	N/A
	BLISS 8600 GS 256MB	AquaMark 3 Score
0x AA/Optimal	459/800MHz (Ref - Single)	26045
4x AA/8x AF	459/800MHz (Ref - Single)	15368
8x AA/16x AF	459/800MHz (Ref - Single)	9671
Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better.

Well we up the stakes and go for a higher resolution the logic applies as before with the scores being not that impressive. Kind of normal as we are very used to those high performance graphics cards that deliver high figures but also come at a high price. Having said this we can't really be negative about the BLISS 8400 GS, as is does quite okay on AquaMark 3 and does have all the features as the other products of the GeForce 8 series. And yes on card has to the low-end version or also entry version for the GeForce 8 series, so you know that this is just to bring the new technology at the lowest possible price tag. And that is exactly what Gainward has done.

Futuremark 3DMark06

To complete the view and Futuremark performance figures we also run a 3DMark06, which is the worldwide standard in advanced 3D game performance benchmarking. A fundamental tool for every company in the PC industry as well as PC users and gamers, 3DMark06 uses advanced real-time 3D game workloads to measure PC performance using a suite of DirectX 9.0c 3D graphics tests, CPU tests, and 3D feature tests. 3DMark06 tests include all new HDR/SM3.0 graphics tests, SM2.0 graphics tests, AI and physics driven single and multiple cores or processor CPU tests and a collection of comprehensive feature tests to reliably measure next generation gaming performance today.

Benchmark Results - 1280x1024 - E6700 2.66GHz - 2GB RAM
	Radeon HD 2400 PRO 256MB	3DMark06 Score
0x AA/Optimal	525/800MHz (Ref - Single)	1787
4x AA/8x AF	525/800MHz (Ref - Single)	1359
8x AA/16x AF	525/800MHz (Ref - Single)	1074
	BLISS 8600 GS 256MB	3DMark06 Score
0x AA/Optimal	459/800MHz (Ref - Single)	1649
4x AA/8x AF	459/800MHz (Ref - Single)	1192
8x AA/16x AF	459/800MHz (Ref - Single)	931
Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better.

Looking to the present day, the reference for running benchmarks for a graphics accelerator is still 3DMark06 from Futuremark. Yes no new version yet, although with all the DirectX 10 games recently being released we can somehow anticipate that it won't be long before we will also see a new version from this very good benchmark software. This time however we can compare the results of the BLISS 8400 GS with its counterpart, the Radeon HD 2400 PRO running at slightly higher clock settings. The results are quite on par with the GeForce 8400 GS trailing a bit behind, which becomes more visible when we start enabling anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering. In the end is that also limited by the small 64-bit memory interface.

Benchmark Results - 1600x1200 - E6700 2.66GHz - 2GB RAM
	Radeon HD 2400 PRO 256MB	3DMark06 Score
0x AA/Optimal	525/800MHz (Ref - Single)	1409
4x AA/8x AF	525/800MHz (Ref - Single)	1025
8x AA/16x AF	525/800MHz (Ref - Single)	807
	BLISS 8600 GS 256MB	3DMark06 Score
0x AA/Optimal	459/800MHz (Ref - Single)	1231
4x AA/8x AF	459/800MHz (Ref - Single)	866
8x AA/16x AF	459/800MHz (Ref - Single)	640
Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better.

Again we did increase the resolution on our LCD screen to see the impact. And no this time we won't be showing any High Definition results as the low-end part is not designed for this operation. Yes, certainly the lowest HD resolution is support and should give results similar to our set resolution, but that will be as far as we would go. The performance of the BLISS 8400 GS is okay when looking at the technology behind, however the ATI based counterpart does better on each time. So in the end it will come down to the price tag and so far the GeForce 8400 series should come out on top. And that also counts for the Gainward version, which has set a nice low entry price for their BLISS 8400 GS graphics card.