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| by MAC | August 10, 2009 | ||
| Gaming Benchmarks Gaming BenchmarksFuturemark 3DMark06 The Futuremark 3DMark series has been a part of the backbone in computer and hardware reviews since its conception. The trend continues today as 3DMark06 provides consumers with a solid synthetic benchmark geared for performance and comparison in the 3D gaming realm. This remains one of the most sought after statistics, as well as an excellent tool for accurate CPU comparison, and it will undoubtedly be used for years to come.  In 3DMark06, the results are effectively identical, so it's clear that the additional bandwidth provided by the DDR3-2000 9-9-9 setting is offset by the DDR3-1600 configuration's faster 6-7-6 timings. Let's see if these results are as prominent in Futuremark's latest gaming benchmark... Futuremark 3DMark Vantage You asked for it, so we have finally included 3DMark Vantage, Futuremark’s latest release in their renowned line of 3D benchmarking software. This latest DX10-only 3DMark comes with a variety of presets, but for our tests will be use the standard Performance preset which is suitable for a much greater range of system specifications than the other more demanding presets.  Predictably, Vantage, which is even less susceptible to memory sub-system changes than 06, demonstrates effectively no performance differences between the three results. The DDR3-2000 configuration has a slightly higher CPU score than the other results, but that is obviously a result of the 50Mhz CPU core clock advantage. Can we expect similar results in actual games? Let's find out... Far Cry 2 Far Cry 2 is the hot new new first-person shooter from Ubisoft's Montreal studio, and the first game to utilize the new visually stunning Dunia Engine, which will undoubtedly be used by numerous future games. Using the included Benchmarking Tool, we ran the Long Ranch demo in DX10 mode at 1680x1050 with all settings set to very high.  Finally, here we see some noteworthy gains, namely a 6% performance improvement in minimum frame rate between the DDR3-1600 6-7-6 and DDR3-2000 9-9-9 results. There is also a 2.7% increase in the average frame rate, which equates to a minor 2FPS improvement. By the way, no we can't explain the unusually high maximum frame rate of the DDR3-1600 6-7-6 configuration. We re-ran the benchmark three times, and it was always 20FPS higher than the other results. It is simply one of those inexplicable benchmarking anomalies. World in Conflict One of the most visually stunning real-time strategy games in recent history, World in Conflict can really push systems to the brink, which is what we attempt by running the game in DirectX 10 mode at 1680x1050 with all settings maxed out. For this test we used the in-game benchmarking tool.  Identical results across the board, nothing to report here. Left 4 Dead Left 4 Dead is the latest disorienting, fast-paced zombie apocalypse mega-hit from Valve. L4D uses the latest version of the Source engine with enhancements such as multi-core processor support and physics-based animation. We test here at 1680x1050 with in-game details set to their highest levels, with MSAA 4X and AA 8X. For benching, we used a pre-recorded 20 minute timedemo taken on the No Mercy campaign during The Apartments mission.  In Left 4 Dead there is a precedence on high bandwidth over low latencies, and we noticed a 7% performance improvement going from DDR3-1600 6-7-6 to either the DDR3-1866 or DDR3-2000 configuration. This equates to a roughly 8FPS gain in average the average frame rate, which is a pretty respectable gain. | ||
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