British Understatement: 3Dlabs' Wildcat VP Put To The Performance Test

Solidworks 2001 Plus (application)

The following benchmarks are all based on real-world applications frequently used in the workstation segment. To run these tests you need a fully licensed version of each program, or the benchmark model/ script will not run.

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The SPEC benchmark for Solidworks 2001 uses, among others, a complex model of a machine and a car. In the machine's case, the maximum number of vertices is set at 2.25 million.

The FireGL 8800 and 8700 are in the top places in the Solidworks graphics test. The Wildcat VP cards occupy the middle field, while NVIDIA brings up the rear.

The overall value says far more, however. Here the interplay of the drivers with the other components of a PC system comes to the fore. The overall value represents the benchmark's total running time. The picture in the rankings is erratic. The Wildcat VP 970 takes first place, although you should bear in mind that the scores are very close, indicating that all products performed really well in this benchmark. The unusual ordering of the rankings (for example, FireGL 8700 before the 8800) is a result of measurement tolerances. Despite several test runs and calculation of average values, this type of measurement inaccuracy cannot always be avoided.

Uwe Scheffel