3D Mark Vantage
3DMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed to test the DirectX10 performance of your graphics card. A 3DMark score is an overall measure of your system’s 3D gaming capabilities, based on comprehensive real-time 3D graphics and processor tests. By comparing your score with those submitted by millions of other gamers you can see how your gaming rig performs, making it easier to choose the most effective upgrades or finding other ways to optimize your system. The main thing to focus on here is the processor benchmark rather than the graphics score. Both overclock and stock results were tested with the same graphics card. The graphics cards tend to have a very big effect on the performance during the CPU score of this particular benchmark. nVidia cards tend to assist the processor with the calculation while ATI cards tend to leave the processor alone. For comparison I have included a test that was run at 2.8 GHz with an nVidia card. The results were very different from one another.
As seen in the images above, even a lower end nVidia card helps the processor to such an extent that even an overclocked 4.0 GHz processor is put to shame. In addition to the overwhelming advantage in the processing assistance, nVidia cards also tended to outperform the equivalent ATI cards in most of the games.
Coming in the mid 16000’s, the Core i7 outperformed all the processors in stock settings all of the previous Q series processors. There was one peculiar thing that I have noticed during the testing was how the graphics cards impact the processor. while the a score in the 16000’s score is great, it is completely outperformed when the Core i7 is combined with an nVidia card. The nVIdia 9600 GSO which is a card that is roughly equivalent in performance to a Radeon 4650 gave our CPU a score in the 33000’s range. This might suggest that if you are interested in squeezing out every bit of performance out of your CPU, you are more likely to do so if you have an nVidia card rather than and ATI.
PC Mark Vantage
PCMark Vantage is the first objective hardware performance benchmark for PCs running 32 and 64 bit versions of Microsoft Windows Vista. PCMark Vantage is perfectly suited for benchmarking any type of Microsoft Windows Vista PC from multimedia home entertainment systems and laptops to dedicated workstations and hi-end gaming rigs. Regardless of whether the benchmarker is an artist or an IT Professional, PCMark Vantage shows the user where their system soars or falls flat, and how to get the most performance possible out of their hardware. PCMark Vantage is easy enough for even the most casual enthusiast to use yet supports in-depth, professional industry grade testing.
Unlike 3d Mark Vantage which mostly benchmarks you system with gaming in mind, the PCMark Vantage tries to evaluate the more general parts of your system and organizes the results based on seven different categories and provides an overall score based on how every single component contributed to the system. The overall score for the system was 6154 PC mark points. After taking a closer look at all the categories I noticed that the computer performed exceptionally well in the gaming suite, however, was significantly limited by the HDD suite which placed a ceiling on the overall score. The top two categories that were mostly dependent on the processor is the gaming suite and the productivity suite both of which were exceptional.
When we test hardware, we try to do everything that we can to make the bottleneck of the rig that piece of hardware. In this review, the reviewer was using 2 – 4870’s in Crossfire. This gives a fairly good benchmark point for what you will expect to see.
I find all the game benches to be lacking in comparative data. All we find out is where your rig gives out of being playable, not how much a difference the 920 is doing. It could very well be that you are reaching the capacity of what the graphics card is able to display and that the CPU isn’t involved much at all.
Nice! I need this information. But could you tell me what the “PCG 08” means?
PCG is a processor power specification to help identify thermal solutions, power supplies, and chassis that will meet specific power requirements. The PCG mark can be found on the box label and engraved on the IHS of the processor.
Great Blogging!!
Keep Your Good Work Going!!
Pretty cool post. I just came across your site and wanted to say
that I’ve really liked reading your blog posts. Any way
I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon!
Hey, nice post, very well written. You should post more about this.