Can't believe my friend's 3DMark05 score

mazeroth

Golden Member
Jan 31, 2006
1,821
2
81
My buddy, who I haven't seen in about a year, has an Athlon64 3200+ with a Sapphire X800XT. He built this computer about 18 months ago and paid $450 for the ATI back then.

I asked him to run 3DMark05 because it seemed like his computer was running games extremely well. He has his Athlon64 3200+ running at 2.21ghz and his video card was running at stock settings of 500/500 (I think the 2nd is mem and is actually running at 1000mhz). With that config he managed to pull off a 5997 3DMark05, which shocked the hell out of me. Is this a normal score for a system like his? I was under the assumption a 7800GT would get 7000-8000, and if that's true, then it's pretty amazing his now sub $200 card can almost keep up with the 7800GT.

I run an Athlon 2800+ with a 6600GT and get 2900 3DMarks. I'm getting ready to upgrade and was going to grab a 7800GT, but seeing how his 18 month old card can almost keep up with one, I may just save up for another month and snag an X1900 :)
 

biostud

Lifer
Feb 27, 2003
18,193
4,674
136
You can't play 3dmark, check some real game benchmarks.

The 7800GT is significantly faster in most games and support SM3.0.
 

Elfear

Diamond Member
May 30, 2004
7,096
640
126
Pretty typical. My X850XT PE and 3700+ scored around 6400-6500 running at stock speeds. It hit 7500 oced. The X800/850 series actually keeps up very well with the 7800 series in some games. The previously mentioned X850XT PE was within a few fps of my 7800GTX in FarCry, HL2, and UT2004.
 
Nov 5, 2005
199
0
0
Your friend's 3dmark 05 score seems pretty normal, considering he has a mild OC on his proc. Also, don't judge hardware solely by its 3dmark scores; they are synthetic tests and do not resemble real gaming performance.