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3DMark03 & 05The latest in the 3DMark benchmark series built by Futuremark Corporation (formerly known as MadOnion.com). More than 5 million benchmark results have been submitted to Futuremarks Online ResultBrowser database. It has become a point of great prestige to be the holder of the highest 3DMark score. A compelling, easy-to-use interface has made 3DMark very popular among game enthusiasts. Futuremarks latest benchmark, 3DMark03, continues this tradition by providing a Microsoft DirectX 9 benchmark.

The introduction of DirectX 9 and new hardware shader technologies puts a lot of power in the hands of game developers. Increasingly realistic 3D games will be available over the next year and a half. The use of 3D graphics will become more accessible to other applications areas and even operating systems. In this new environment, 3DMark03 will serve as a tool for benchmarking 3D graphics.

I wanted to show you the bandwidth effects with Synthetic gaming software in the form of the 3DMark series. The big advantage is that this software is not at all very CPU dependant. Thus the memory bandwidth increase will show very objective performance differences. Differences are roughly nil though, but they are there alright. Default is the standard 1024x768 reference test run from FutureMark with all options set to default.

Let's have a look at our last little test, Half-Life 2.

Half-Life 2

The moment the entire graphics industry was waiting for is here, after a delay or 200 one of the biggest titles in the history of PC games was released by Valve, Half-Life 2. Gameplay that should be extraordinary, sound that'll make you drool and a first time graphics experience that'll make the choice between doing the "thing" or playing this game a difficult one.

Gordon Freeman is back! Along with scientist Eli Vance and his daughter Alyx, your mission is to save the planet from total alien supremacy. See, that petite incident in Black Mesa was just the beginning: now those pesky Xen invaders and a new threat called the Combine have spread across the whole Earth, causing massive amounts of death and destruction. Its up to you to set things right.

The source engine provides a gritty realism that surpasses (marginally) even Doom 3s "Super-real" prowess. While maybe not as visually spectacular as Doom 3, HL2s lighting seems a lot more "natural". Let me put it like this, Doom 3s lighting can seem like someone has inserted a laser light show onto Mars making it almost too spectacular, where as HL2s lighting is just "accepted" by the eye as lights reflect, and create shadows with precision, streaming through windows with an unnerving realism.

For HL2 we recorded our own timedemo. We opted for the riverboat level where complex shaders will make things rough on the graphics card.

My gosh, it's amazing how CPU limited Half Life 2 is, but I have been saying that for a long time already. It seems like 3.6 is the exact threshold where it's limited. Again in the lowest resolutions we see small FPS changes, not much but still it's there. And once everything comes together and the CPU can be increased thanks to the higher FSB then we see some really nice additional performance. For those interested, you can read our own full HL2 review right here. Our cheapest on-line price for Half-Life 2 is