3dmark and the Pentium II 350Mhz

[TKS]

<A HREF="http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=60000242" target="_new">This</A> is very interesting. A Pentium II 350Mhz CPU with a 9700 Pro can beat up on a 2.8Ghz P4...while I know games are graphics intensive...it makes me wonder why I ever upgraded my gaming machine at all...I mean, if gaming is all I do on it...I could have kept my old Pentium III in it and not spent all of that money on the upgrade...well it's something to think about.

<font color=blue>other people's lives
seem more interesting
cuz they aint mine
</font color=blue>
<font color=green>Modest Mouse</font color=green>

TKS

 

[pIII_Man]

Do you know how long my BX boards have lasted me?

Haha...i wish i could tell everyone that they do not NEED a p4 or AXP to run games...


Proud owner of DOS 3.3

 

[simwiz2]

3DMark doesn't really represent gaming performance, it's just a graphics card benchmark.

 

[TKS]

If 3dmark doesn't represent gaming performance...then it shouldn't be called 3dmark. Oh, and the different sections it 'tests' shouldn't be called game 1, 2, 3, and 4 repectively.

<font color=blue>other people's lives
seem more interesting
cuz they aint mine
</font color=blue>
<font color=green>Modest Mouse</font color=green>

TKS

 

[pIII_Man]

most games are primarly graphics card based however...


Proud owner of DOS 3.3

 

[RRAMJET]

Read my post 'Should pIII be thrown out', it did have a different name before, but it clearly shows the difference newer faster chips have on gaming and how 3dmark doesn't represent real life gaming performance. Its in the cpu section.

If he doesn't die, he'll get help!!!

 

[simwiz2]

They are more GPU dependent yes, but not to the point that an ancient P2 would perform on par with a P4 2.8 just because the P2 has a high-end card instead of a mid-range one.

Look at the real game tests in the article - they don't match the results of the 3DMark tests.

 

[ufo_warviper]

In the real-world game benches in that same article, the P2 was beaten to a pulp though TKS. In the conlcusion, they reckoned that the 3Dmark2003 was not representative of overall system performance that it is regarded for today. The conclusion also stated that 3dmark should be reageded as a video benchmark if anything else, and nothing more that. I've never had any faith in 3Dmark and have never even bothered to ever download it before. You'll be happy you upgraded.

My OS features preemptive multitasking, a fully interactive command line, & support for 640K of RAM!

 

[HardWareBoss]

Ya the past 5 or 6 years.

 

[ChipDeath]

yeah, in a real game a PII350 would suck, big time.. Because although the Gfx card could render everything beautifully, stuff like computer AI is still done with the CPU.

Playing Raven shield multiplayer on a LAN, If we turned on 'AI backup', then simply having 6 computer-AI players severly crippled my 800Mhz Athlon System, but it's OK with just human players.

---
The end is nigh.. (For this post at least)

 

[slvr_phoenix]

Here's a quote directly from the article:
<font color=blue>

Our 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 test system won every benchmark except for Gun Metal by a considerable margin (usually a factor of two). Even in Gun Metal, the Pentium 4 managed to deliver twice the frame rate of the 350 MHz Pentium II system, despite having an inferior video card (Radeon 9600 vs Radeon 9700 Pro). Yet in 3DMark03, we see the 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 being beaten by a five year-old CPU in all but one game test

</font color=blue>

If that doesn't tell you how meaningless 3DMark03 is, nothing will.

<pre><A HREF="http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20030905" target="_new"><font color=black>People don't understand how hard being a dark god can be. - Hastur</font color=black></A></pre><p>

 

[pjordan]

If you put it in a Ferrari it might beat a 3.2!! LOL

 

[pIII_Man]

hmmm...someone is stealing my old sigi!

Ok i never said that a pII will beat a P4...i was just trying to say that casual gammers probably do not need an ubber fast cpu to play their games at good resloutions and framerates...

Hell i am happy with my Tualatin at 1.55ghz it gives good frame rates probably would be beat by other systems but still it runs modern games just fine with moderate detail...

Now the fact about 3dmark really supprised me actually because i have noticed that 3dmark is very much effected by memory bandwith which the PII does not have (or at least not much of).


Proud owner of DOS 3.3