3DMark 2001SE
We'll start off proceedings with 3DMark 2001SE v330. Its mix of bandwidth and GPU tests makes it a reasonable indicator of potential performance in Direct3D gaming.Firstly, 1024x768x32 with no antialiasing and anisotropic filtering.
The most basic aspect to take away from the above graph is just how easily each of our three test cards manhandle this benchmark. Each card managed to average over 100 FPS in the GPU-bound Nature test.
Manhandling is easy with no image enhancement, but how easy is the test with 4x antialiasing and 8x anisotropic filtering ?. Re-benchmarked at the same resolution.
The FX 5900 Ultra's massive core and memory speeds, helped by the test's multi-texturing preference, gives it almost 1500 marks over the Crucial 9800 Pro. 12400 marks is still impressive enough.
On to 1600x1200x32 with 4x AA and 8x AF.
Falling around 13% behind the 5900 Ultra is kind of expected once we view the 1024x768x32 4x/8x results. We still remember when the basic criteria for playing games hovered around 3000 marks at 1024x768x32. Today's very latest games would require somewhere in excess of 10,000 for fluid play, we'd say.
