3DMark Vantage is the latest addition to the 3DMark series, measuring Shader 4.0 (i.e., DirectX 10) performance and supporting PhysX, a programming interface developed by Ageia (now part of NVIDIA) to transfer physics calculations from the system CPU to the video card GPU in order to increase performance. Mechanical physics is the basis for calculations about the interaction of objects. For example, if you shoot, what exactly will happen to the object when the bullet hits it? Will it break? Will it move? Will the bullet bounce back?

We ran this program at three 16:10 widescreen resolutions, 1680x1050, 1920x1200, and 2560x1600. First we used the “Performance” profile, and then we used the “Extreme” profile (basically enabling anti-aliasing at 4x, anisotropic filtering at 16x, and putting all detail settings at their maximum or “extreme” value. The combination of 2560x1600 resolution with extreme settings didn’t produce reliable results according to the program, so we aren’t going to add them here. The results being compared are the “GPU Scores” achieved by each video card.

3DMark Vantage Professional 1.0.1 - 1680x1050 – Performance	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	7695
GeForce 9800 GX2	6990	10.09%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	5651	36.17%
GeForce 9800 GTX	3805	102.23%
Radeon HD 3870	2977	158.48%

3DMark Vantage Professional 1.0.1 - 1920x1200 – Performance	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	6106
GeForce 9800 GX2	5379	13.52%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	4336	40.82%
GeForce 9800 GTX	2891	111.21%
Radeon HD 3870	2269	169.11%

3DMark Vantage Professional 1.0.1 - 2560x1600 – Performance	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	3549
GeForce 9800 GX2	2910	21.96%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	2382	48.99%
GeForce 9800 GTX	1557	127.94%
Radeon HD 3870	1244	185.29%

3DMark Vantage Professional 1.0.1 - 1680x1050 – Extreme	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	6005
GeForce 9800 GX2	4858	23.61%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	3567	68.35%
GeForce 9800 GTX	2703	122.16%
Radeon HD 3870	1855	223.72%

3DMark Vantage Professional 1.0.1 - 1920x1200 – Extreme	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	4732
GeForce 9800 GX2	3508	34.89%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	2669	77.29%
GeForce 9800 GTX	2038	132.19%
Radeon HD 3870	1439	228.84%