Why do people care about 3dMark?

[LungExpansion]

Why do people care about 3dMark? Its only a synthetic benchmark. It never influenced any of my purchases for a video card because it benchmarks against games that dont exist.

I have always looked to see what video card will be able to play a real existing game I want to play at a decent framerate instead. I just dont see the significance of a potential benchmarking to what the video card can really do in an actual game.

Is it just bragging rights?

Same goes for sysoft sandra benchmarks if we were to actually believe those synthetic benchmarks were reality then we wouldnt even look at an AMD cpu for gaming. But we know the opposite to be true.

So what good are benchmark utilities if they dont reflect real world application and gaming performance?

Bring back the old Ziff Davis benchmarks utilities that installed real world applications and benchmarked them this synthetic stuff is just hot air.

 

[Ronin]

Yeah, mostly bragging rights. We all know it's synthetic, and has never really been a proven indicator of how a system is going to react to a real world environment, but it's still fun to play around with.

 

[imported_Grave]

I don't care

 

[Sable]

I downloaded and ran it to to see where my new system fitted in with similar systems. If there's a 1000 point difference between my machine and a similar specced machine it means there's something wrong.

(And of course bragging rights as well )

 

[Compellor]

I've always used it to compare my system with other systems with similar components. It's a good test to see if you may have a bottleneck or a hardware issue. It's also good for checking system stability.

 

[Shooks]

Originally posted by: Compellor
I've always used it to compare my system with other systems with similar components. It's a good test to see if you may have a bottleneck or a hardware issue. It's also good for checking system stability.

:thumbsup:

 

[Sc4freak]

And it has nice graphics.

 

[akugami]

3DMark, while useless for actual performance tests, is a great way to test an overclocked video card for any stability issues. If you can run your overclocked video card for 24 hours with this on max settings, you're good to go.

 

[poohbear]

24hrs for a video card? u sure that's safe? cpu yes, but video card probably doesnt need to run on load for 24hrs. :/

 

[Malladine]

Pretty pictures and numbers to analyze. What else do tech geeks need?

 

[ayabe]

Originally posted by: poohbear
24hrs for a video card? u sure that's safe? cpu yes, but video card probably doesnt need to run on load for 24hrs. :/

I second that, besides are you going to sit for 24 hours and check for artifacts? I don't think so.

 

[apoppin]

Futuremark's Latest Attempt: 3DMark06 Tested

3DMark06 is quite useful for doing more focused comparisons with hardware components. For instance, comparing 3DMark results between a card and an overclocked version of itself can give a good idea of how a given card's clock speeds scale. Another use would be for testing drivers and to determine what kind of improvements certain features may have had between updates. We typically use looped game benchmarks when testing the stability of a graphics card while overclocking, but 3DMark would make a good tool for this as well. With 3DMark's demos, any graphical tearing or visual anomalies would very easily be seen. By taking screen shots, 3DMark would also be a great tool for comparing image quality in Anti-Aliasing or filtering for example.

that's 'why'

And now you can PLAY it

 

[amenx]

Well if anyone noticed, the actual games FPS more often than not is consistent with 3dMark scores.

When you see a score of 3000 and a score of 2000, the higher score usually also means higher FPS. Its not a solid rule, but it is a good indicator. So that counts for something.

Also, if you're cards benchmark is within a consistent range for that card, and a 3dmark score comes out sharply lower for some reason, then you have an indication that somethings "not right" and needs to be investigated.

So it is a useful tool.

 

[BlingBlingArsch]

its for e-penis measurement.

 

[videopho]

Originally posted by: BlingBlingArsch
its for e-penis measurement.

lol...for a better word

 

[Spook]

2 things,
1. Stability, I use this thing running over an extended period, to judge the stability of the system, as mentioned above
2. To compare against simular rigs... Now, this isn't just an e-penis comparison, What other program out there allows you to do all that 3dmark does?
you might be able to record a benchmark in another program, but where can you compare that to others? We aren't all playing the same games, and making such comparisons is hard, so, 3dmark just streamlines the ability to compare, and judge your performance to others with simular hardware, with a free download...

Doesn't get much easier than that...

 

[professor1942]

Yes, it's good to measure improvements from overclocking and to compare your system with near-identical systems to make sure it's running as it should. Aside from that, it's a waste of time and I really hope it doesn't influence anyone's purchase decisions. P4 scores seem to be ridiculously high considering how inferior they are in reality, and the benefits of dual core AMD systems are way exaggerated.

 

[KeithTalent]

Originally posted by: Compellor
I've always used it to compare my system with other systems with similar components. It's a good test to see if you may have a bottleneck or a hardware issue. It's also good for checking system stability.

QFT

Before I ran 3dMark I never thought I could OC my little laptop GPU. After seeing all of the other results on their I got ATI Tool, went up 50 on the core and 40 on the mem...now I can play BF2 with 2xAA

KT

 

[VIAN]

I don't care about it. But...

I like to see the graphics sometimes. It's a e-penis reference.

 

[Wreckage]

For real world game performance it's never seems to work well.

But for testing changes to your system it can come in handy.

Not to mention that all important score for your sig.

 

[Munky]

Peer pressure...

 

[LungExpansion]

Do chicks dig an e-penis?

Its like sisoft sandra if we were to believe bencmarking applications that arent real world applications then according to sisoft sandra the pentium is a significantly better performer than an opteron. LOL.

I just dont get how a company that develops a video benchmark utility can make so much money for something that does nothing but put pretty pictures on the screen yet has no realistic ability in telling me that a score of 3000 means quake 3 should run at 60fps at 1024x768. No correlation between 3dmark and real world performance. Same goes for sisoft sandra. Both a Waste of time. I always skip those pages on review sites.

At least with the Ziff davis benchmarks it would tell me what performance Improvements one would get from specific applications.

Isnt getting a FPS average the same as determining performance of a similar system? All game benchmarks would need to do is allow thier specs to be uploaded to a database so others could compare systems to determine the best upgrade path. This would render 3dMark useless as a benchmarking utility.

 

[RobertR1]

It's a consistant benchmark.

 

[Pete]

Why do people care about 3DMark?

Because it's pretty and it's easy.

The latter makes it a handy for troubleshooting, too, and the former makes it easy to sit through said troubleshooting. It started out a bit more relevant b/c 2001 used the Max Payne engine for its Matrix scene, so it used an actual game engine. Plus, back then I don't recall as many easy-to-benchmark games that weren't Quake [X], so it had that going for it.