Test Methodology
We used synthetic and application benchmarks for assessing performance of these cards. Screen resolution and color depth were chosen according to the recommendations of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation, SPEC . We tested all cards under Windows 2000 Service Pack 1 with a resolution of 1280x1024 and True Color. Vsync is set to "off", to avoid its frame rate impact.
As synthetic benchmark we used Viewperf 6.1.2. Real Word benchmarks using real software are another very important criteria for evaluation. We decided to use the SPECapc Solidworks 99 Benchmark and R3-Benchmark-Suite for 3D Studio Max 3.0.
3D Studio Max 3.0 R3 Benchmark
This test has a camera that's constantly moving within a 3D scene. For each frame the graphics card has to recalculate the entire scene. In sync to the resolution, this extreme rasterization test works with big and small polygons simultaneously.
