Benchmarks III
Let's now focus on gaming. We'll start, as always, with 3DMark 2001SE. Benchmarked at its default resolution of 1024x76x32. Please note that newer Detonator drivers have boosted scores by around 1200 marks on a clock-for-clock basis.
Once again, the MAX2 nudges past its namesake. What's more pleasing is the 700 mark gain from simply changing memory speeds from DDR266 to DD356. I have to remind our readers that the scores obtained here are with the most performance-enhancing timings. Re-running the benchmark with 2-6-3-3 timings instead of 2-5-2-2 timings results in a lower score of 13514 marks, putting it behind the Shuttle. The benchmark was conducted with a stock GeForce4 Ti 4600.
On to Serious Sam 2. We're benchmarking the publicly available Valley of the Jaguar Timedemo, one that is heavily reliant on subsystem speed, at 1024x768x32 Normal preferences.
More of the same here. Bandwidth is indeed king. The IT7-MAX upstages the MAX2 by the smallest possible margin here. I personally cannot tell the visual difference between the slowest and fastest here, can you ?.
Another heavily subsystem-limited benchmark is Comanche 4 from Novalogic. Huge open expanses stress the CPU and memory greatly. Benchmarked at 1024x768x32 with, of course, sound disabled.
All the benchmark results are slightly down when compared to previous scores. I can attribute this loss to the newer Ti 4600 drivers I'm using. The MAX 'boards, when used with the 3:4 ratio, continue to rule the benchmark suite so far.
Let's wrap it up now.
