Performance in Synthetic Benchmarks

Futuremark 3DMark 03

Traditionally we begin to analyze the results of 3DMark with the scores the cards get when they pass this test at its default settings.

As you see, almost all top-end cards have overcome the 10,000 peak, save for the GeForce 6800 which seemed to feel the lack of fast memory. Two cards, RADEON X800 XT Extreme Edition and GeForce 6800 Ultra, even got beyond 12,000, but the ATI card got a higher score.

The GeForce 6600 GT has firmly established itself as a leader in the mainstream class. No wonder as its architecture is perfectly suited for the conditions of the second and third tests as well as of the most difficult, fourth one. The ex-king of 3D graphics, the RADEON 9800 XT, follows behind. The GeForce FX 5950 Ultra is close by, too, thanks to the ForceWare driver.

There?s a new record-breaker among the PCI Express cards: the increased frequencies of the GPU and memory helped the RADEON X850 XT Platinum Edition to get beyond the next milestone (13,000 points). The RADEON X800 XT and the GeForce 6800 GT share the second place; the new RADEON X800 XL did well, too, in spite of the reduced GPU clock rate (400MHz). The RADEON X700 XT beats the GeForce 6600 GT here, which in its turn outperforms the RADEON X700 PRO.