3DMark Vantage

I don't know about you, but when I upgrade or build a new PC I like to run it through some benchmarks and other tests to see how much better it is than my older PC.

I've just given the new 3DMark Vantage a run through on the new PC and it has a cool set of new tests to watch. I was also impressed with my score of P9724... until I went to the 3DMark site and saw that those with insane money to spend on gaming rigs are scoring around the P40000 mark! Hmm...

Anyway, all games I've tried so far on the system have run at over 60 fps with all graphical effects maxxed out at 1280x1024, so I'm happy with it as it is.

Have any of you tried 3DMark Vantage yet? And what scores did you get? Worth noting is that there is no point trying it unless you are running Vista because it is a DX10 only benchmark.

I also ran the older 3DMark versions from 2006 back to 2000 and got some great scores, and finally the ability to see the older tests running smoothly with good framerates. I remember the first time I ran the 2005 edition and the first demo test with the fight on the space ship ran at about 4 FPS on a ATI 9800 Pro. On my 4870 the same test now runs at over 60 FPS. Nice!

Some of the older version's gave scores that are not really of importance or seemingly that accurate to actual performance from the tests. The 2003 tests for example were all running at over 100FPS, with the aircraft one sometimes hitting 400FPS, and the final score was 39,721.

I did find the test results from some of my older graphics cards, so here is a runthrough of the scores from each. Is interesting to see how much each progresses for each benchmark score. Do however take into account that the system specs were different for most cards. The Radeon 9600 and 9800 Pro tests were run on an Athlon XP 3000+ with 1GB ram, the 7800GT was run on an Athlon 64 3700+ with 2GB ram, and the Radeon 4870 was running on a Q6600 with 8GB ram.

Results

Connect3D Radeon 9600 256MB

3DMark01 12000
3DMark03 2500

Connect3D Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB

3DMark03 5666

PNY nVidia 7800GT 256MB

3DMark03 14223
3DMark05 6738

XFX Radeon HD 4870 "XxX edition" 1GB

3DMark'00 26059
3DMark01 32146
3DMark03 39721
3DMark05 16275
3DMark06 13476
3DMark Vantage P9724