While the usual graphics settings for CPU or motherboard benchmarking try to avoid making the graphics card a bottleneck by picking rather low resolutions and detail settings, we now moved away from this position. Nobody who goes for a high-end system (dual core or not), a decent platform and 1 or 2 GB of RAM is going to equip their system with any graphics card below $200. Nor will they accept low quality settings at all.

Even mid-priced 3D boards will already provide decent frame rates and a lovely visual experience. This is the reason for us picking a resolution of 1280x1024 at 32 Bits and high quality settings. The resolution makes particular sense considering that most 17-19" TFT displays run with these parameters.

As a result, you will see only small differences in some benchmarks such as Doom 3 and Unreal Tournament 2004. The question is: does it really matter? The results are by far good enough for smooth gameplay and make pretty clear that the graphics card is still by far the most important component for stunning 3D graphics.

Classic Benchmark Results

OpenGL