Benchmark Results: 3DMark 11
Futuremark’s 3DMark 11 is designed to isolate the graphics subsystem, so it’s no surprise to see the Extreme suite putting all four contenders on equal footing. The same applies to the Graphics suite score.
Where we do expect to see some differentiation is the Physics result, though. Per the application’s whitepaper:
“A scene with a large number of rigid bodies is simulated and rendered. The rendering is done using light-weight techniques. The rigid bodies collide with each other and some of them are connected with joints. The simulation is divided to multiple threads by partitioning the simulated world to several isolated regions. The Bullet Open Source Physics Library C++ path is used as the physics SDK for this test, and compiled and linked statically into the test binary at development time.”
Combining the best elements of Gulftown and Sandy Bridge yields a compelling victory in favor of Intel’s Sandy Bridge-E. That advantage is reflected in the Physics test FPS chart.
Of course, that’s a completely synthetic performance measurement. We’ll have to see how well it maps over to real-world applications in order to make a more meaningful recommendation.
