Futuremark Synthetic 3D BenchmarksThese synthetic 3D benchmarks from Futuremark allow you to evaluate the expected performance of a system with different generation games. As each 3DMark uses different feature and quality settings, it allows you to get an idea of how a video card will perform in games. But be aware that since Futuremark takes DirectX guide lines to build their stress tests with all features available, performance can differ from real world games when those games don’t fully support/implement all DX features. So take these results with a grain of salt, and always compare them to our game benchmarks.
Let’s start with the most taxing 3DMark of them all, 3DMark06. Default settings are 1280x1024 resolution Anisotropic Filtering enabled, in short: all but the highest end VGA cards can run this benchmark fluently.
This benchmark makes heavy uses of Shader for graphical effects, the 8500 GT with its dedicated Shaders really excels here, the older 7300 GT units trail behind, overclocking the PNY 7300 GT DDR2 brings it on par with the DDR3 (at stock), overclocking the Zotac doesn’t really increase performance much (~15%), while the 8500 GT when OC’ed gets a nice boost.
Onto the 3DMark05 benchmark which also features a lot Shader heavy sessions, but runs at a lower resolution of 1024x768 with AA/AF.
With the cards at stock speeds the 7300 GT DDR3 is only trailing the 8500 GT by ~5%, the DDR2 unit however is much further behind, and needs a 50% boost to catch up, overclocking the 7300 GT DDR2 doesn’t close the gap with the stock 8500 GT, the 7300 GT DDR3 does succeed in doing this; but the real champ of this benchmark is the 8500 GT which has an 38% boost in score when overclocked.
Next up is the 3DMark03 benchmark, no more heavy Shader action here, and the 7300 GT cards catch up, big time:
The 7300 GT DDR2 is now almost on par with the 8500 GT at stock, but still trails it when overclocking both. The 7300 GT DDR3 reigns supreme with a comfortable 37~48% lead over the 8500 GT.
Last one is the now very old 3DMark2001SE DX8.1 benchmark:
The 7300 GT cards prove superior in this test, only when overclocked the 8500 GT stands a chance. The DDR3 7300 GT really excels here.
Let’s see if the results obtained here match our game benchmarks ->