Benchmark Results: 3DMark And PCMark
3DMark loves AMD's Radeon HD 6970s, handing a big win to the new $2000 system’s CrossFire configuration. CrossFire also helps separate the dual-Radeon HD 6850 $1000 build from its single-Radeon HD 6950 $500 counterpart. Perhaps the most surprising drop-off happens when you shift from the $1000 machine to the $500 system.
SSD drives weren’t as common when the previous version of PCMark was developed, and this new version appears designed to give less of a scoring advantage to systems that use them. A closer look at individual test scores provides a better idea of how much the spread is changed.
While the performance gap still appears significant between solid-state- and hard drive-based systems, the larger difference appears to be a 90% decrease in transfer rate. These systems obviously didn’t slow down that much, and the results instead indicate new testing methods for the new benchmark, complete with new biases.