CPU Test Results and Overall Results
3DMark06 CPU Tests
The two CPU tests in 3DMark06 have their results reported in the same manner as the game tests: one weighted, normalized score and the actual frame rates.
Red Valley
Since we used the same processor/platform for our benchmarks here, it makes good sense that we should see nearly identical results across all benchmark runs. Unfortunately I didn’t get in any different CPUs for testing this time around, but I will be adding them very soon.
Overall 3DMark06 Results
Well, here they are, the first 3DMark06 results you’ll see on PC Perspective.
Since we used the same processor across all tested GPU configurations, our overall 3DMark06 results look very similar to what we saw in our individual SM2.0 and SM3.0 benchmarks. The NVIDIA 7800 GTX 512 MB card has a big lead over the top from ATI’s X1800 XT card and in fact even the 256 MB version of the 7800 GTX holds its own against the R520. The 7800 GT is a better performer than the X1800 XL cards and the 6800 GS we recently reviewed did a good job against the ATI X1600 XT card.
Keep in mind that since the CPU scores are weighed in with our final results here, that the SLI / CrossFire performance gaps aren’t quite as wide as they would normally be. Where as the NVIDIA 512s in SLI showed a 70% gain in the individual tests, here we see only a 41% gain in the complete 3DMark06 score.
Final Thoughts
3DMark06 is hitting the web today, and no doubt there will be huge lines at all the download sites as gamers and enthusiasts struggle to be the first to find out how their system compares to the numbers we have seen here. As we all get more time to play around with the new graphics tests, CPU tests and feature tests, I am sure there will be a lot of discussion on how this new version compares to the past ones and how closely it will end up resembling next-generation gaming software. Because in the end, that’s the goal of these applications — giving the user an indication of which hardware best performs on today’s and tomorrow’s games.
My congratulations and thanks goes out to Futuremark for supplying the industy and community with a useful tool in 3DMark06.
Be sure to use our price checking engine to find the best prices on the NVIDIA 7800 GTX, and anything else you may want to buy!
