Help m eunderstand 3DMark score.

[jason4207]

If you run 3DMark06 at default settings it is running at 1024x768 w/o any eye-candy. Is that how you play your games?

The 4870 (and ATI's entire 4 series) pulls very respectable frame rates at low resolution w/ no eye candy, but what differentiates it from the pack is that when you increase your resolution and eye-candy the frame rates don't drop at all.

To do a more fair comparison try running both setups w/ 3DMark06 set to a higher rez like 1680x1050 or 1920x1200 w/ some AA. Or try running Vantage 'H' or 'X' preset. Watch the 4870 walk away.

My volt-modded 8800GTS-512 (18.3k in 3DMark06) still clobbers my volt-modded 4850 in 3DMark06 (w/ default settings), but the 4850 is faster in Vantage 'H' and in games.

 

[jimmers]

Alot of current games don't use Crossfire. A single card score of 14k is pretty good. Tomorrow or the next day my Asus 4850 Top is here and I will be aiming for a 790mhz GPU OC the day I get it. My setup in sig like said was 15,477 so very close to what you were at, I will let you know my results. But I'm willing to bet it will probably be a bit under what my current score is. 14.5k for a single card and I would be quiet happy so hopefully I can get that.

**edit** Also is your 4870 clocked up? And if you really wanna see how the 4870 fairs against the 3850's get Vantage and give both setups a run at that. 3D06 is very CPU intensive. With my CPU and 3870's at stock clocks I only hit like 11.5k in 3D06. I then cranked up the processor to 3.22Ghz and I hit something like 14.9k, Ramping up the 3870's from 775mhz core to 876mhz only netted me that additional 500 or so points.

So if you really want to measure the gfx power get Vantage and watch the GPU score, should give you a much better idea of how close they are. I bet the Vantage scores will be decently close (under 1k points diff).

Thanks for clearing that up, I'll give Vantage a try.

 

[jimmers]

If you run 3DMark06 at default settings it is running at 1024x768 w/o any eye-candy. Is that how you play your games?

The 4870 (and ATI's entire 4 series) pulls very respectable frame rates at low resolution w/ no eye candy, but what differentiates it from the pack is that when you increase your resolution and eye-candy the frame rates don't drop at all.

To do a more fair comparison try running both setups w/ 3DMark06 set to a higher rez like 1680x1050 or 1920x1200 w/ some AA. Or try running Vantage 'H' or 'X' preset. Watch the 4870 walk away.

My volt-modded 8800GTS-512 (18.3k in 3DMark06) still clobbers my volt-modded 4850 in 3DMark06 (w/ default settings), but the 4850 is faster in Vantage 'H' and in games.

Thanks, you made a good point. I play games at 1680x1050 and can now turn all the eye-candy on since getting my 4870. With my 3850 I had to tone it down quite a bit. I'm just used to benching my computer and getting a high score each time I upgrade.

 

[Bon3thugz43v3r]

I did a couple runs at 3.6ghz stock voltage and with my hd4870 @ 825 1140 and was pulling about 15k over three different runs at default 3dmark06 settings.

 

[jimmers]

I did a couple runs at 3.6ghz stock voltage and with my hd4870 @ 825 1140 and was pulling about 15k over three different runs at default 3dmark06 settings.

Thanks that makes me feel better seeing as how we have a very similar setup.