3DMark 2001SE
Kicking it off with 3DMark 2001SE. Build 330.
The 45.23 drivers appear to have lopped off around 900 marks from a default GeForce FX 5600 Ultra Rev. 2's scores. The ABIT 128MB Ultra, a card based on the original NVIDIA FX 5600 Ultra design, just nips in behind the Radeon 9600 PRO. The very first benchmark spells trouble for the bandwidth-starved FX 5600 256MB Siluro.
Raising the image quality bar allows the 128MB ABIT Ultra to sneak ahead of the 9600 PRO. Antialiasing and anisotropic filtering are cases when the card needs the most usable bandwidth. 400MHz DDR isn't enough, really. That's why the 256MB card is over 2000 marks off the pace of the supposedly inferior 128MB version.
Further evidence, as if we needed any, that a 256MB frame buffer is only beneficial on cards and games that make full use of it. The 9800 PRO stretches its bandwidth and pixel-pushing muscles to great effect.
