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Geek Culture / Benchmarks on Toms Hardware

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Sasuke
19
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Joined: 2nd Dec 2005
Location: Milton Keynes UK
Posted: 21st Nov 2008 02:09
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I don't know if you guy's have looked at these benchmarks but if you do, DON'T, they are the most messed up results i've ever seen.

No really, don't:
Alle Benchmarks Gaming Graphics Charts Q3/2008

A couple of the many (nearly all) examples:
Test: Half Life 2 Episode 2 (1280x1024, 0xAA, Trilinear, Very High Quality)
NVIDIA Geforce 8600 GTS 256MB is faster than the 512MB
A single NVIDIA Geforce 8800 GT 512MB is much faster than:
The 1024MB version
8800 Ultra
8800 GTS
GTX 260
9800 GTX
9800 GX2
9800 GTX SLI
8800 GT SLI
8800 GTS SLI
8800 GT SLI
7950 GT SLI
GTX 280 SLI
GTX 260 SLI `this is the lowerest out of these

Now it's a fact that anything made by Id (Doom/Quake) is catered more to Nvidia cards but still this benchmark:
Test: Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (1280x1024, 0xAA, Trilinear, High Quality)
A single NVIDIA Geforce 9600 GT is forth from the top, guess what right under it in order:
9800 GTX
GTX 280
8800 GT
GTX 260
8800 GTS
8800 Ultra
8800 GTX
9800 GX2

You wouldn't believe that the 8800 GTS 512MB is at the top of the list.

This is the most ridiculas benchmark results i've ever seen in my life, what do you think?

A dream is a fantasy, if you achieve that fantasy it was never a dream to begin with.
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ionstream
20
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Joined: 4th Jul 2004
Location: Overweb
Posted: 21st Nov 2008 02:27
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Considering Tom's Hardware has a large amount of resources, time, and experience, it is much more likely that you are incorrect than they are. The results on FiringSquad.com are also similar to Tom's Hardware.

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Jeku
Moderator
21
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Joined: 4th Jul 2003
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Posted: 21st Nov 2008 16:22
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Wait, they still use Half-Life 2 as a benchmark? Welcome to 2004


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RalphY
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Location: 404 (UK)
Posted: 21st Nov 2008 16:25
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Quote: "Half Life 2 Episode 2"


Welcome to 2007 .

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monotonic
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Location: Nottinghamshire, England
Posted: 22nd Nov 2008 00:05
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I thought HL2: E2 used the same engine as HL2 with a few minor improvements? I dunno it's quite possible I'm wrong.

WARNING! The author of this post is most probably drunk or asleep.
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CoffeeGrunt
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Location: England
Posted: 22nd Nov 2008 00:43
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It does, I think it uses the Orange Box revision of the Source engine.....

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RalphY
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2008 16:24 Edited at: 22nd Nov 2008 16:24
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I would say it had more than a few "minor" improvements personally myself, but yes it does use an updated version of the Source engine.


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Jeku
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2008 19:08
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But still, wouldn't a benchmark against the Crysis or UE3 engine be a bit more relevant?


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Venge
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Joined: 13th Sep 2006
Location: Iowa
Posted: 22nd Nov 2008 19:19 Edited at: 22nd Nov 2008 19:19
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I think so, or else use an actual benchmarking app like 3DMark that gets updated every so often. My computer is definitely not top-of-the line, but it can run Half-Life 2 Ep2 at full detail without any noticeable lag.

My specs:
Asus M3A78-EMH HDMI Motherboard
AMD Athlon X2 4800+ @ 2.5 GHz
HIS Radeon HD 2600XT 512MB
Corsair 2GB DDR2 800MHz Ram

I have CDO. It's like OCD, but the letters are in alphabetical order, like they should be.
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IanM
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22
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Location: In my moon base
Posted: 22nd Nov 2008 19:25
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Quote: "But still, wouldn't a benchmark against the Crysis or UE3 engine be a bit more relevant?"

Yes, but it would also make all the half life 2 benchmarks up to that point obsolete, unless you go back and build new benchmarks all those older cards for the new program.

There are reasons to do it, and reasons not to do it. I guess that Tom's Hardware don't consider that the pro's of updating outweigh the con's yet.

[b]Utility plug-ins collection (updated 27/09/08) and
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bitJericho
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Location: United States
Posted: 22nd Nov 2008 19:38
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Considering they did benchmark the hardware in question with Crysis (though no UE3), I think it's a moot point.


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Uncle Sam
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Location: West Coast, USA
Posted: 24th Nov 2008 20:07
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These benchmark people need to learn to use video card to play game!

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Raven
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Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 24th Nov 2008 22:34
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All of the benchmarking sites do use all three major engines currently used for game development.

Source, Unreal 3 (previously Unreal 2.5) and iD Tech 4

As each one deals with a different approach, render api, etc..
Half-Life 2 is still the primary focus though given the engine itself is fairly balanced in terms of off-loading work between the GPU, CPU and Memory. Where-as iD Tech 4 and Unreal 3 are more GPU bound performance-wise.

Crysis(and FarCry) are used as a "this pushes your card as hard as it can" sort of thing, but realistically it suffers from "Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness Syndrome"... i.e. it's poorly programmed trying to push graphics as far as it can.

Often the application will crash without warning, even on brand-name cards. Due to no fault of the card or drivers but the engine itself.

As far as the confusion over the performance of the "lower spec" cards, take some time to read my post in "CPU Usefulness" it might shed some light as to why they perform better on the benchmark system in question.

Ironically enough, Benchmark sites in general ignore the rules of performance system building; and just throw together the best parts they can find then assume the GPU will come out on-top. Although it is good for a fair test, it doesn't really help as far as showing you the potencial of the hardware you're looking to purchase. Even their overclocking section overlooks this stuff in order to tell you how far you can push the hardware in physical speed rather than how to setup a better performing system.

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