Results

3Dmark Vantage

The 3Dmark series of benchmarks applications - produced by Futuremark - are designed to test the DirectX performance of graphics cards. Each 3Dmark program corresponds to the year that the features it tests were available in commercial graphics cards. The final score is calculated by combining the results from tests of the PC's graphics card and CPU, so processor speed needs to be taken into account when comparing scores. 3Dmark Vantage is the latest version and is a DX10 only benchmark, and therefore can only be run in Windows Vista

Settings

All settings were left at default using the "Performance" preset.

3Dmark06

3Dmark06: Canyon Flight

Released in 2006, 3Dmark06 has been a staple for 3D benchmarking since it's release, and it's still quite capable of bringing an unprepared system to it's knees if given half the chance. It features:

• HDR rendering.
  
• Complex HDR Video post-processing.
  
• Dynamic soft shadows for all objects.
  
• Water shader with HDR refraction, HDR reflection, depth fog and Gerstner wave functions.
  
• Heterogeneous fog.
  
• Atmospheric light scattering.
  
• Realistic sky model with cloud blending.
  
• Strauss lighting model for most materials.
  
• Subsurface scattering shader for some objects (not visible in the shot).
  
• Texture & normal map sizes: 1024 x 1024 to 2048 x 2048.
  
• Approximately 5.4 million triangles and 8.8 million vertices.

NB. List taken from Wikipedia

Settings

All settings were left at default and only the "free version" tests were run.

The 3Dmark06 scores for the 9800GTX Black + are pretty impressive, almost keeping up with the Sapphire 4870 x2; especially on the SM 2.0 scores. In Vantage, the 9800 drops down a fair bit, getting only a little just over half the score of the 4870 x2.