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3dmark?

post #1 of 4
8/2/03 at 8:07pm
Thread Starter 
Ok, let me preface by saying that I do not want to get virtually hazed for these questions, I'm just trying to learn something because I am interested. Yes, I'm sorta a newbie. heh.

I've read alot on benchmark tests, but I simply do not understand them. Could someone explain to me the whole concept of 3dmark2001, 3dmark2003, etc...how they differ, what they measure, and what they test? What about Sandra? I see it everywhere, and I thought this would be the best place to ask the question. As always, any response is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
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post #2 of 4
8/2/03 at 8:58pm

re

say you get a new video card and its top of the line... well you would test it out with the 3Dmark software, basically its almost watching a really cool dvd, cept its pushing your computer to its max by testing what it can and can not do (graphics wise)

Sandra tests your CPU / Memory and hard drives, how fast they "work / talk" together aka how fast your whole computer is not just grpahics. Both are free programs unless you want to pay a fee to get more options but the base stuff is all you will need.

hope this helps i tryed to make it easy
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post #3 of 4
8/2/03 at 10:41pm
sadly tests like 3dmark2003 (not 2001) and Sandra are such poor synthetic benchmarks because they cant scale well to real world tests like Unreal Benchmarking or timed photoshop rendering tests. I recently read an article which shocked me.

where a pentium4 2.8 ghz with a radeon 9500

scored evenly or less then a pentiumII 350Mhz with a radeon 9700

im sure the video card difference is huge but not as much as the 2 cpus its rather sad since we dont have dx9 games to determine game speeds. 3dmark 2001 is still a good benchmark all games require DX6.1+ and 80% of games have Dx7 features 30% feature dx8 and even less for dx9.

Im actually glad the mobile greaphics cards arnt moving as fast as there desktop counterparts we can so avoid fiasco's like the FX 5200, 5600, 5800.
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post #4 of 4
8/3/03 at 12:15am
Quote:
Originally posted by Maverick2o2
I recently read an article which shocked me.

where a pentium4 2.8 ghz with a radeon 9500

scored evenly or less then a pentiumII 350Mhz with a radeon 9700
That test was with 3dmark2003, which unlike 2001, is designed to isolate the performance of the video card only. What you were seeing is the software working just as it is designed to do, test JUST the graphics card.

But you are correct, they are synthetic benchmarks and don't accuratly reflect real-world performance. They give an idea of what a card can do, but they shouldn't always be trusted. I find it a lot more helpful when people post thier framerates from games like UT2003, etc. It's much better to hear it form a person than a sythentic benchmark. "This card is amazing with XXXX running full detail at 1600x1200!" is a lot better than an artificial number to me.
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