Testing (continued):

The tests to be executed include three synthetic benchmarks, four 3D games analyzed for real world performance, thermal testing, and then power consumption testing. Each of the cards was run through the following tests:

» FutureMark 3DMark06
» FutureMark PCMark Vantage
» PassMark Performance Test v6.1
» Company of Heroes - Opposing Fronts
» F.E.A.R. Extraction Point
» Half Life 2: Episode 2
» Team Fortress 2
» Thermal Testing
» Power Consumption Testing

3DMark06:

3DMark06 is a popular video benchmark from FutureMark that provides a quick and easy way to get an overview of a system's gaming potential. The total score (presented in unitless "Marks") is generally what people are interested in, but the table below also shows results from the SM2.0, HDR/SM3.0, and CPU components of the test. The test settings had all cards running at 1280x1024, No AA, and optimal filtering (higher is better for each result).


Here we see that the HD3870 X2 doesn't provide 2x the performance of an HD3870, but it does provide quite a boost. The HD3870 X2's total score of 15546 is 38% higher than the score achieved on the single (overclocked) HD3870.

PCMark Vantage:

PCMark Vantage is another FutureMark benchmark that can be used to gauge the overall performance of a system, as long as it is running Windows Vista. There are several suites within the program that can be run separately in order to narrow the focus of testing, and for this review only the "Gaming Score" for each card was compared. The results were collected with the system set to run at 1024x768 (the highest it seems to allow), and higher is better.


The HD3870 X2 is the winner here, but in my opinion the scores seem much closer than I would have expected. PCMark Vantage doesn't seem to weigh graphics processing power very heavily in making its final assessment.