3DMark Vantage Performance Tests

3DMark Vantage is a computer benchmark by Futuremark (formerly named Mad Onion) to determine the DirectX 10 performance of 3D game performance with graphics cards. 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.

There are two graphics tests in 3DMark Vantage: Jane Nash (Graphics Test 1) and New Calico (Graphics Test 2). The Jane Nash test scene represents a large indoor game scene with complex character rigs, physical GPU simulations, multiple dynamic lights, and complex surface lighting models. It uses several hierarchical rendering steps, including for water reflection and refraction, and physics simulation collision map rendering. The New Calico test scene represents a vast space scene with lots of moving but rigid objects and special content like a huge planet and a dense asteroid belt.

At Benchmark Reviews, we believe that synthetic benchmark tools are just as valuable as video games, but only so long as you're comparing apples to apples. Since the same test is applied in the same controlled method with each test run, 3DMark is a reliable tool for comparing graphic cards against one-another.

1680x1050 is rapidly becoming the new 1280x1024. More and more widescreen are being sold with new systems or as upgrades to existing ones. Even in tough economic times, the tide cannot be turned back; screen resolution and size will continue to creep up. Using this resolution as a starting point, the maximum settings were applied to 3DMark Vantage include 8x Anti-Aliasing, 16x Anisotropic Filtering, all quality levels at Extreme, and Post Processing Scale at 1:2.

3DMark Vantage GPU Test: Jane Nash

Our first test shows the MSI N460GTX-Ti right in the middle between a Radeon HD 6870 and an HD 5870. It leaves an MSI Cyclone version of the GTX 460, even with the factory OC of 725MHz, in the dust. In DX10 synthetics, the number of cores and the core clock are the main factors for performance, and the GTX 560Ti has both axes covered. It's easy to see the advantage the new GF114 GPU has over the first Fermi chips. Equally amazing is what this chip will do when you overclock like you mean it. With 975 MHz on the GTX 560Ti GPU core, it almost catches the highly overclocked Gigabyte SOC version of the GTX 480. We'll be looking at this more as we move on in our testing.

At 1920x1200 native resolution, the relative ranking stay exactly the same. It's hard to tell the 1920 and the 1680 charts apart, until you look at the actual FPS values. BTW, the order of the bars, from left to right is based on current cost of the products. Once again, the GTX 560Ti really puts a boot in it and jumps way up the performance ladder, compared to the GTX 460 cards.

Let's take a look at test #2 now, which has a lot more surfaces to render, with all those asteroids flying around the doomed planet New Calico.

3DMark Vantage GPU Test: New Calico

In the medium resolution New Calico test, the MSI N560GTX-Ti convincingly beats all comers in the price range. In this test, only the GTX 560Ti and the GTX 480 make it above 30FPS at 1680x1050, which shows how tough this medium resolution test really is. The Radeon HD 6870 really falls back here, coming up just short of the GTX 460. Overclocking the GTX 560Ti gets it close to GTX 480 levels, but not quite there. A GTX 480 on stock clocks would have been passed up by this 560 on steroids.

At the highest screen resolution of 1920x1200, the MSI N560GTX-Ti card, with its substantial factory OC, keeps its substantial lead over the GTX 460 and the two Radeon offerings. Raw Shader power is what drives this benchmark, and the GTX 560 Ti has quite an advantage there. This benchmark suite may have recently been replaced with DX11-based tests, but in the fading days of DX10 it is a reliable and challenging benchmark for high-end video cards.

We need to look at some actual gaming performance to verify these results, so let's take a look in the next section, at how these cards stack up in the standard bearer for DX10 gaming benchmarks, Crysis.

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