t-break: Tech @ Its Fastest » 3DMark

Rovio buys Futuremark Games Studio

Abbas Jaffar Ali — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 09:05:39 +0000

Rovio, the company that has developed the super popular Angry Birds announced today that it has bought Futuremark Games Studio, the gaming arm of software developer Futuremark- the company reponsible for benchmarks in the PC industry such as 3DMark and PCMark (both of which are used at t-break to benchmark components and computers). Both the companys are based in Finland, however, details of the deal havent been announced.

“They are an incredibly talented and experienced team, and we are thrilled to have them on board,” said Mikael Hed, Rovio Entertainment’s CEO said in a statement. “Rovio’s success is founded on the excellence of our team, and Futuremark Games Studio is going to be a superb addition.”

Futuremark’s CEO Jukka Makinen says that the remaining company will continue to focus on benchmarking software, used by the gaming industry to test and improve the performance of their games. “Future will now focus on supporting gamers and industry with 3DMark,” he said in a statement. The company is planning to release a new version of the software later this year that will let developers test across different platforms.

Futuremark has previously mentioned that they will be developing a benchmark for mobile devices so don’t be surprised to see little red wingers stress testing your iOS or Android device in the upcoming future.

Source: Tech Crunch

AMD Fusion E-350 Review

Taimoor Hafeez — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 08:38:56 +0000

This isn’t our first time looking at the new AMD Fusion APU; our review for the Zotac Zbox AD03 has been up for a couple of weeks already. However, the Zbox AD03 review focused on the HTPC as a whole; today I’ll be looking at the AMD E-350 APU in particular.

Over the last few years AMD has been absent from the netbooks and nettops market. They obviously did have onboard solutions since a long time, but nothing that could compete in the same category as Intel Atom processors. Then of course Nvidia soon came out with their ION based chipsets that allows a decent level of low-end gaming performance. AMD and ATI were left out in the cold. Now with AMD’s new direction with integrating both CPU and GPU on one die, resulting in a cooler and a more power efficient processor, or APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) as AMD likes to call it.

So the AMD Fusion E-350 that I have for review comes on an ASUS E35M1-M motherboard. The Mini-ATX sized board is designed for HTPC. The ASUS E35M1-M gets its namesake from the E-350 APU as well as the Hudson M1 chipset onboard. The onboard APU, the Brazos E-350 has two ‘Bobcat’ cores running at 1.6GHz as well as the AMD HD 6310 integrated Zacate graphics. Keep in mind that the HD 6310 supports DX11, but it’s not exactly setting the charts on fire as you’ll see in the benchmarks.

The whole idea behind the AMD Fusion APUs is to provide a better experience than Intel’s Atom CPUs while at the same time also providing the power of the integrated graphics to provide an overall basic entertainment experience. This is true for netbooks and nettops, but in HTPCs it’s a slightly different story.

3DMark 11: Nvidia vs AMD

Taimoor Hafeez — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 10:33:56 +0000

Futuremark’s 3DMark software has been the core of graphics card benchmarking since the last 12 years. Every time a new generation of 3D cards come out, or a new version of 3DMark comes out, every PC enthusiasts starting burning their CPUs and GPUs trying to get the highest score possible. Some go to extreme lengths just to say ‘mine is bigger than yours’, but such is the nature of the beast.

Now, almost two and a half years later, Futuremark releases the latest generation of their benchmark software, called 3DMark 11. Smartly named, because, you know, it’s a DirectX 11 based test which also happens to be just in time for 2011!

On to the actual benchmark itself, it was about time Futuremark released a DX11 version of 3DMark since there aren’t many games on the market, save Metro 2033, that stress test the current and next generation of DirectX11 cards from Nvidia and AMD. The only other benchmark left was Unigine’s Heaven v2.1 which in itself is a great benchmark, but it’s more skewed towards tessellation testing.

So what 3DMark 11 focuses on, apart from tessellation, is depth of field, volumetric lightning and post processing effects; all of which are staples of DirectX 11. Apart from new visuals, Futuremark is using Bullet Physics instead of Nvidia’s PhysX (previously AGEIA PhysX) this time around as it’s an open source code based on C++. The idea being that it doesn’t provide a more favourable score towards Nvidia’s cards as was the case with 3DMark Vantage.

Starting off with 3DMark 11, we take a look at the overall interface first. Depending upon which version you’ve got (Basic/Advanced/Professional) the main window will show you tabs for Basic, Advanced and/or Professional, followed by Results and Help. We only have the Advanced version which costs $19.99 allowing us to customize the test completely with different resolutions and varying levels of effects and settings that can be enabled/disable and increased/decreased.

Running 3DMark 11 is a fairly straightforward process, where you can run the benchmarks in three different configurations depending on how powerful your system is and how badly you want to kill it much you want to stress test it.

Three benchmarks comprise 3DMark 11, all of which are drawn using DirectX 11 with varying degrees of effects working in any one test. There are no synthetic tests, so there’s no more room for error or second guessing the real-world capabilities of your 3D card anymore.

3DMark 11 contains a demo mode which basically runs the two graphics based tests with different sweeping camera angles and a pleasant soundtrack. Coming back to the tests, the first four tests focus on various post processing effects, volumetric lighting, depth of field and tessellation. The last two tests are Physics based, using all the cores of your CPU as well as DirectCompute so that parallel processing shaders and other effects are processed by the GPU instead of CPU.

3DMark 11 is coming to burn your cards

Mufaddal Fakhruddin — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 07:18:26 +0000

If your home lacks a heater for the impending winter, fear not. FutureMark has just the right tool to cover that end: 3DMark 11; should heat up your card nice and good. 3DMark is of course the new version of the popular benchmark tool for graphics card, and users will be able to grab a copy from November 30th, 2010. There will be two version, as usual: a free version with basic features, and the advanced version which will get additional options like Extreme PC benchmark, custom benchmark, etc. More info the press release below.

Press Release:
Futuremark® announced today that 3DMark® 11, the latest version of the industry standard benchmark for real-time 3D graphics, will be released on November 30. 3DMark 11 Advanced Edition priced at $19.95 can be pre-ordered today from http://www.3dmark.com/. Futuremark has updated the 3DMark website to highlight the exclusive features in the Advanced Edition and has released a new pre-order preview trailer showing graphical improvements in the Deep Sea and High Temple scenes. A selection of new before and after screenshots demonstrate tessellation, volumetric lighting and other effects created with DirectX 11.

The new 3DMark 11 Pre-order Preview trailer shows off a number of improvements from the previously released work-in-progress tech demo videos. The Deep Sea scene now includes particle effects in the water as submersibles explore the sea bed and discover a sunken World War II submarine. In the High Temple scene the foliage is now animated and there are changes in the lighting conditions as the sun sets on the mysterious temple.

3DMARK 11 BASIC EDITION – Free, available from November 30
- Performance PC benchmark preset
- Audio visual demo, fixed at 720p
- Browse, search and compare results online
- Store one result online

3DMARK 11 ADVANCED EDITION – $19.95 – PRE-ORDER NOW
- Entry level PC benchmark preset
- Performance PC benchmark preset
- Extreme PC benchmark preset
- Custom benchmark settings
- Audio visual demo, custom resolutions
- Benchmark looping for stability testing
- Browse, search and compare results online
- Unlimited online results storage
- Hide results from public view
- Offline result management
- Advert-free online service

3DMark 11 will be released on November 30, 2010. The Advanced Edition can be pre-ordered now from http://www.3dmark.com/ Please visit the official website for more trailers, screenshots and information.

ECS Black GTS 450 review

Taimoor Hafeez — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 11:16:12 +0000

Nvidia’s got their bases covered with the GTX 480 line for the high-end and the GTX 460 for the enthusiast market, but those on a tight budget either look at previous-gen cards or have cards too weak for modern games. Somewhere in between these two segments is where Nvidia’s GTS 450 lies, providing acceptable performance at a low price.

Don’t ask me why, but ECS has decided to ahead and label the GTS 450 as GTX 450, perhaps sticking to a simple branding system but creating some confusion for the general consumer; unless there’s no official GTX 450 released by Nvidia. (UPDATE: ECS have come back to us reporting that the GTX on the cover was a mistake on their end. The actual retail boxes will have GTS 450 on them)

As with the ECS Black GTX 460 reviewed last week, the GTS 450 also comes with minimal packaging; 1 DVI to VGA and DVI to HDMI connector, a PCIE power cable, User manual and Drivers CD. This being a Black series card also means that it gets the ECS special treatment of factory overclock and a heavy heatsink, specifically the Accelero Twin Turbo Pro. The Core clock is up to 850MHz (up from 782MHz) and Memory clock is 2000MHz (up from 1800MHz). As for actual specs, the Nvidia GTS 450 is based on the GF 106 architecture, covered in 1.17 billion transistors, 192 Shaders and 16 ROPs. Now you can see exactly why the GTS 450 is priced the way it is.

ASUS Matrix 5870 Platinum review

Taimoor Hafeez — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 09:02:38 +0000

Today we’re taking a look at one of the highest end cards from ASUS’s ATI offerings, the Matrix 5870 Platinum graphics card. It comes with a slight factory overclock GPU at 894MHz Core (compared to 850MHz reference) clock speed. Everything else remains the same; except that the Matrix 5870 Platinum also comes with 2GB GDDR5 instead of the standard 1GB memory on other HD 5870 cards in the market.

Due to these additional bells and whistles, the ASUS Matrix 5870 Platinum retails at AED 2150 ($ 527) which is a little higher than other 2GB variants of the HD 5870 cards out there.

As with most of ASUS’s graphics card, the packaging is simple and minimal. Along with the drivers is included the iTracker2 overclocking utility, two 8-pin to 6-pin splitter cables, two HDMI to DVI and DVI to VGA connectors and a Crossfire cable. The Matrix 5870 Platinum forgoes the secondary DVI port, instead coming with an HDMI (v1.3) and native Display Port. Also, note the Safe Mode button at the back. Think of it as CMOS Clear button which will basically reset any ambitious overclocked settings on the card, bringing it back to factory default speeds so that the PC can easily boot up.

Another interesting feature of the Matrix 5870 Platinum is the GPU load lighting system on the card itself. Under different levels of stress, the colours will keep on changing. So, for instance, under normal to light load, the colours will hover between dark and light blue. Running the Just Cause 2 benchmark turned the lights to purple, while some parts of 3DMARK Vantage were giving off a red glow.

Moving on to the real meat of the review, let’s look at our testbed comprises of an Intel 965 EE Quadcore CPU @ 3.2GHz with 3GB Corsair DDR3-1333 RAM on the Gigabyte X58A-UD9 motherboard. ATI’s latest driver, Catalyst 10.7 was used for testing the ASUS Matrix 5870 Platinum.

Breaking the 20k Mark in 3DMark Vantage

tareq — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 07:35:45 +0000

As this is my first blog, I thought of posting about something extreme, so here goes:

It all started with me wanting to build a system with Crossfire capabilities so I could run a Crossfire setup anytime with any ATI card- I admit, I am fan of their cards. The reason I prefer working more with ATI cards than NVIDIA is simply because I have a water cooling setup with two Dangerden Maze 5 GPU blocks connected in the loop. This block can be mounted on an ATI X800 GTO, 1900XT, 1900XTX, 2900XT, HD 3850 , 3870, 4850, 4870 and the 4890. Basically, the water block is compatible with almost all ATI cards due to the positioning of the four mounting holes around the GPU staying unchanged throughout the years.

This is very much unlike NVIDIA, where almost each generation or series of cards has its own uniquely sized holes, making it hard to upgrade.

Having said that, let’s take a look at my gaming rig’s specifications:
• CPU: Intel QX 9770 Extreme Edition
• Motherboard: Asus Maximus Extreme X38
• GPU: 2x Asus EAH4890 with Voltage Tweak
• RAM: 2x Corsair CM3X1024-1800C7DHX + 2xOCZ OCZ3P16001G
• Sound card: Creative Xtreme Music
• PSU: Enermax Galaxy 1000w
• Hard Drive: 2x Seagate 320GB @ RAID0
• OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 32-Bit SP2

Before making any changes to my system, I first removed the heatsink from both 4890s and installed only the red heatsink with the fan on it and mounted the Dangerden Maze 5 GPU block. I saw temperatures of approximately 30° C at idle and around 40° C at load.

I started to benchmark my setup with the default settings to see what the score would be, and the result was a total score of 15755, comprising of 17011 as the GPU Score and 12899 as the CPU Score with 3Dmark Vantage.

Validation: http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dmv=1374498

It’s actually pretty impressive considering the setup is faster than a single 4870X2 or two 4870 cards, on default settings. So I chose to overclock the GPU’s first and kept the CPU at stock. To do that I used Rivatuner v2.24 with a registry hack to enable overclocking on the 4890 with Voltage adjusting.

After hours of tuning to see what the optimum voltage setting would be with best clock speed so I don’t throttle the GPU and bring down the scores, I managed to stick with 1.5v on the GPU running at 1050MHz and 1200MHz on memory. I managed to obtain a total score of 17342 Mark, comprising of 19393 GPU Score and 13165 CPU score, so that’s an extra 1587 points achieved by simply overclocking the GPU’s.

Validation: http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dmv=1374525

But I wasn’t done yet; I still had the Qx9770 CPU to overclock, so I went back to the BIOS to adjust the multiplier to 10x, FSB to 425 and CPU Voltage to 1.62500v, after which CPU showed 1.52v in the Windows screen. RAM speed was set to 1700MHz by running it at1.94v which enabled the Quad core CPU to run fully stable at 4250MHz. This is despite the X38 motherboard limiting me- I’ve tested the same CPU on the Asus Rampage Extreme and managed to gain a stable 4.4GHz.

Anyway, I benchmarked the setup and I was left with 19983 Mark on Vantage which made me go crazy as I was only 17 marks shy of hitting 20k, so I restarted the setup, went back to Windows, but this time, I cleaned unnecessary applications using the Task Manager and increased the memory speed on both of the 4890’s to 1210MHz. I started 3Dmark Vantage and closed my eyes, hoping to cross the 20k score…

Once 3Dmark Vantage had completed, I opened my eyes to see the 20124 Mark on the screen with 21406 on GPU score and 17057 on CPU score which made me ecstatic!

Now I am ranked #9 in 3Dmark Vantage with Performance settings along with 4890 Cards among the rest of the benchmarks! Validation: http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dmv=1381652