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.

In this software we ran two tests, both at 1024x768x32. Since we were evaluating low-end video cards, we decided to not run our tests in higher resolutions, since rarely a user that buys a video card from this level will push resolutions above 1024x768 in 3D games.

We ran this software first without antialiasing and with no anisotropic filtering, and then we put the antialiasing at 4 samples and anisotropic filtering at 4 samples. 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 benchmark, allowing direct comparison between them. Also, some very low-end video chips (Volari 8300 and Intel i915G) don’t have antialiasing feature, so we were not able to benchmark them using this configuration.

At the default 3DMark05 configuration, HIS Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB 128-bit was beaten by nVidia GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB, which was 22.40% faster, but it was faster than its rival, ATI Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB 128-bit, being 4.35% faster.

HIS Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB 128-bit was 39.10% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600 128 MB, 89.88% faster than Leadtek GeForce 6200 128 MB 128-bit, 119.98% faster than XFX GeForce 6200 TC 64 MB 64-bit, 162.84% faster than ATI Radeon X300 128 MB 128-bit, 163.78% faster than PowerColor Radeon X300 SE HM 128 MB 64-bit, 189.90% faster than XGI Volari 8300 128 MB, 200.62% faster than Leadtek GeForce 6200 TC 16 MB 64-bit and 746.24% faster than Intel i915G (Intel D915GEV).

Enabling video quality enhancements, HIS Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB 128-bit was beaten by nVidia GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB, which was 4.18% faster and it was faster than its rival, ATI Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB 128-bit, being 3.80% faster.

HIS Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB 128-bit was 57.50% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600 128 MB, 114.03% faster than Leadtek GeForce 6200 128 MB 128-bit, 214.02% faster than XFX GeForce 6200 TC 64 MB 64-bit, 242.56% faster than PowerColor Radeon X300 SE HM 128 MB 64-bit, 244.46% faster than ATI Radeon X300 128 MB 128-bit and 358.01% faster than Leadtek GeForce 6200 TC 16 MB 64-bit.