3DMark05 measures performance by simulating DirectX 9.0c games, i.e. using the new Shader 3.0 model. This programming model is used by Far Cry game and other games to be launched in the future. This new programming model is used by GeForce 6 and 7 series from nVidia and Radeon X1000 series from ATI.

We run this program in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialiasing and anisotropic filtering, and then configuring antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering also at 4x. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to notice that ATI chips can run at 6x antialiasing. Since nVidia chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialiasing to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our bechmarks, allowing direct comparison between them.

At a resolution of 1024x768 without any image quality enhancement, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX was 21.37% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 53.34% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 141.06% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 142.24% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 308.99% faster than GeForce 6600, 385.48% faster than Radeon X600 XT and 409.67% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1280x1024 without any image quality enhancement, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX was 32.45% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 67.64% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 178.65% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 220.80% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 398.65% faster than GeForce 6600, 503.65% faster than Radeon X600 Pro and 532.86% faster than Radeon X600 XT.

At a resolution of 1600x1200 without any image quality enhancement, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX was 42.20% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 80.85% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 212.47% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 342.25% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 492.16% faster than GeForce 6600, 586.73% faster than Radeon X600 Pro and 689.55% faster than Radeon X600 XT.

At a resolution of 1280x1024 enabling image quality enhancements, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 26.27% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 69.65% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 181.23% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 387.72% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 504.72% faster than Radeon X600 Pro, 571.34% faster than GeForce 6600 and 595.13% faster than Radeon X600 XT.

To run at 1280x1024 enabling image quality enhancements on 3DMark05 the video card must have at least 256 MB of memory, because of that some video cards couldn’t run this test. Here GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 34.29% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 82.18% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 214.11% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 573.60% faster than Radeon X600 Pro and 830.98% faster than Radeon X600 XT.

To run at 1600x1200 enabling image quality enhancements on 3DMark05 the video card must have at least 256 MB of memory, because of that some video cards couldn’t run this test. Here GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 30.23% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 93.91% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 215.14% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 635.14% faster than Radeon X600 Pro and 1,169,79% faster than Radeon X600 XT.