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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 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 Gainward BLISS 8800 GT Golden Sample edition accelerator against the fastest card on the market today, the GeForce 8800 Ultra card provided by Point of View, 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 | | GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB | AquaMark 3 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 149305 | | 4x AA/8x AF | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 145204 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 137483 | | BLISS 8800 GT 1GB Golden | AquaMark 3 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 650/1900MHz (Ref - Single) | 145014 | | 4x AA/8x AF | 650/1900MHz (Ref - Single) | 137026 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 650/1900MHz (Ref - Single) | 126759 | | Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better. |
A benchmark suite that has been discontinued for over a year now, but we can't just leave it out of our performance analysis. Yes, it doesn't have the most modern 3D engine but it is still able to show some really nice underwater scenery. As we are looking at two video cards featuring similar technology, or very close the results are very much similar, with the GeForce 8800 Ultra coming out on top. Now if we really check this a bit further then this is natural as the Ultra has more shader processors and a wider memory bus. Now, what these benchmarks prove is that the unified shader architecture can also make a difference with older 3D engines, by being able to deliver excellent performance. The Golden Sample edition does very well as delivers very close performance against a card that is selling for double the price. Gainward made an excellent GeForce 8800 GT giving the high-end GeForce 8800 GTX and Ultra cards a run for their money. | Benchmark Results - 1600x1200 - E6700 2.66GHz - 2GB RAM | | GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB | AquaMark 3 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 144262 | | 4x AA/8x AF | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 137250 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 127438 | | BLISS 8800 GT 1GB Golden | AquaMark 3 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 650/1900MHz (Ref - Single) | 137424 | | 4x AA/8x AF | 650/1900MHz (Ref - Single) | 126473 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 650/1900MHz (Ref - Single) | 112659 | | 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 quite impressive. In fact if we look at the results we don't see a major drop with the lower resolution, which does mean that the GeForce 8800 series have quite some rendering power to rely on. Once again the Gainward BLISS 8800 GT Golden Sample is almost able to keep up with the Ultra version, and does come very close. Since the GeForce 8800 GT is come at a very nice price, having great performance which can almost match the high-end GeForce 8800 Ultra it is certainly a great move from NVIDIA to gain some extra market share. Since the Gainward version is an overclocked edition, it comes a bit higher priced than the reference design, however it also features double the amount of memory.
Futuremark 3DMark03 
And here we go; 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. This is actually the first gamers' benchmark that could really be called this name, and actually earned it since it was released. | Benchmark Results - 1280x1024 - E6700 2.66GHz - 2GB RAM | | GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB | 3DMark03 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 34267 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 15077 | | BLISS 8800 GT 1GB Golden | 3DMark03 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 650/1900MHz (Ref - Single) | 30028 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 650/1900MHz (Ref - Single) | 11407 | | Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better. | |
| Benchmark Results - 1600x1200 - E6700 2.66GHz - 2GB RAM | | GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB | 3DMark03 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 28001 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 11883 | | BLISS 8800 GT 1GB Golden | 3DMark03 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 650/1900MHz (Ref - Single) | 24396 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 650/1900MHz (Ref - Single) | 8806 | | Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better. |
To compare our reported results we are using the GeForce 8800 Ultra, a reference NVIDIA design graphics card. Our config build around the GeForce 8800 Ultra clocks down some outstanding scores, but when looking further to the Gainward BLISS 8800 GT Golden Sample edition, we notice that it can follow the same performance trend. 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 G80 based Ultra version does a very nice job and is even able to allow a higher performance at an increased anti-aliasing setting. Do keep in mind that the BLISS 8800 GT Golden Sample is higher clocked in terms of processing, but features a lower memory bandwidth throughput and less stream processors. | Benchmark Results - 2560x1600 - E6700 2.66GHz - 2GB RAM | | GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB | 3DMark03 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 17915 | | 4x AA/8x AF | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 9459 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 5167 | | BLISS 8800 GT 1GB Golden | 3DMark03 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 650/1900MHz (Ref - Single) | 15129 | | 4x AA/8x AF | 650/1900MHz (Ref - Single) | 7652 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 650/1900MHz (Ref - Single) | 4447 | | Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better. |
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. Again we put both our setups against each other, with once again the GeForce 8800 Ultra config taking the lead. In the end it doesn't come that much as a surprise as 3DMark03 is not a full blown DirectX 9.0c benchmark suite, but rather limited to the lower versions. And to that extend the Ultra version just has better specifications and raw power to get the job done. Though we can clearly see that the pre-overclocked GeForce 8800 GT version from Gainward is not far behind. 
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NiBiTor v6.03
