|
Page 6 of 13 
Synthetic Benchmarks Following our usual approach, we will start of the benchmark analysis by going through the different benchmark suites coming from Futuremark, and also the discontinued AquaMark 3 program. These will provide us 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 9800 GX2 edition accelerator against the for long time being fastest card on the market today, the GeForce 8800 Ultra card provided by Point of View, and analyze the performance figures.
Massive AquaMark 3 
One of the benchmark suites which was very popular and still is somehow, is known as AquaMark 3 which is a fully DirectX 9.0 compatible benchmark from Massive Development. And unfortunately the programmers don't exist anymore but that doesn't mean it isn't a great tool. To be able to see how well a certain graphics card is really performing and behaving 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 though, 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 3.00GHz - 2GB RAM | | GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB | AquaMark 3 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 163035 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 147194 | | BLISS 9800 GX2 1024MB | AquaMark 3 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 600/2000MHz (Ref - Single) | 163515 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 600/2000MHz (Ref - Single) | 158316 | | Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better. | |
| Benchmark Results - 1600x1200 - E6700 3.00GHz - 2GB RAM | | GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB | AquaMark 3 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 155577 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 134374 | | BLISS 9800 GX2 1024MB | AquaMark 3 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 600/2000MHz (Ref - Single) | 160442 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 600/2000MHz (Ref - Single) | 150517 | | Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better. |
We know this benchmark suite that has been discontinued for over a year now, but we can't just leave it out of our performance analysis. And you are correct, 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 to say the least, the results are somehow similar, with the GeForce 9800 GX2 coming out on top. If we really check this a bit further then this is natural as the GX2 has more shader processors and a wider memory bus. Now, what these benchmarks prove is that the unified shader architecture can also make a great difference with older 3D engines, by being able to deliver excellent performance. The Gainward BLISS 9800 GX2 edition does very well as it delivers high performance and beating the old GeForce 8800 Ultra champion by a great margin. | Benchmark Results - 2560x1600 - E6700 3.00GHz - 2GB RAM | | GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB | AquaMark 3 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 126230 | | 4x AA/8x AF | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 103816 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 77016 | | BLISS 9800 GX2 1024MB | AquaMark 3 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 600/2000MHz (Ref - Single) | 145333 | | 4x AA/8x AF | 600/2000MHz (Ref - Single) | 132030 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 600/2000MHz (Ref - Single) | 114321 | | 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 decent rendering power to rely on. Once again the Gainward BLISS 9800 GX2 version is almost able to outperform the old Ultra version, and does show to be much faster as such. Since the GeForce 9800 GX2 is comes actually with two GPU's it doesn't really surprise us that it can keep up the performance much better at the high definition gaming resolution. It also means that a single card SLI solution is able to meet the high gaming power needs. The Gainward version follows the reference design and therefore has a quite okay price tag, which can easily compete with their competitors.
Futuremark 3DMark03 
We first look back to an older benchmark suite from Futuremark. By combining full DirectX 9.0a support with completely new game tests and sharper 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 3.00GHz - 2GB RAM | | GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB | 3DMark03 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 34955 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 15248 | | BLISS 9800 GX2 1024MB | 3DMark03 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 600/2000MHz (Ref - Single) | 51002 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 600/2000MHz (Ref - Single) | 20433 | | Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better. | |
| Benchmark Results - 1600x1200 - E6700 3.00GHz - 2GB RAM | | GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB | 3DMark03 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 28768 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 12009 | | BLISS 9800 GX2 1024MB | 3DMark03 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 600/2000MHz (Ref - Single) | 42684 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 600/2000MHz (Ref - Single) | 16114 | | Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better. |
Again we are making the comparison with long time GeForce 8800 Ultra champion which is well known and unrivaled for quite some time. Our config is build around the GeForce 800 Ultra which clocks down some great scores, though it can't really withstand the new king of the hill and needs to recognize that the GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics card will be taking over and reign the high-end graphics segment. Since 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 also when we enabled the anti-aliasing settings. Do keep in mind that the BLISS 9800 GX2 version is lower clocked in terms of processing, though is featuring two G92 cores with each having as much stream processor as just one G80 chipset. | Benchmark Results - 2560x1600 - E6700 3.00GHz - 2GB RAM | | GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB | 3DMark03 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 18085 | | 4x AA/8x AF | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 9503 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 612/2160MHz (Ref - Single) | 5157 | | BLISS 9800 GX2 1024MB | 3DMark03 Score | | 0x AA/Optimal | 600/2000MHz (Ref - Single) | 27522 | | 4x AA/8x AF | 600/2000MHz (Ref - Single) | 13483 | | 8x AA/16x AF | 600/2000MHz (Ref - Single) | 8579 | | Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better. |
You got that right, some high definition gaming input as well as we are now using one of these lovely widescreen 30inch LCD displays that feature an awesome resolution of 2560x1600 to experience just that extra more. And actually NVIDIA is quite a fan of these high definition resolutions as they call it the extreme high definition experience. Again we put both our setups against each other, with once again the GeForce 9800 GX2 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 GX2 version just has better specifications and raw power to get the job done. The Gainward BLISS 9800 GX2 version is made to please the hardcore gamers who are no longer pleased with standard screen resolutions. Though we can clearly see that the reference GeForce 8800 Ultra version can still deliver excellent performance. 
|
GLY GTX275 (OC) PCIe 0896MB - Rev 01
