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? Notice that we didn’t upgrade the PhysX to the latest version, which would make the physics calculations for CPU Test 2 to be made by the GPU instead of the CPU on NVIDIA video cards (since we aren't considering CPU or 3DMark scores this change wouldn't produce any increase in our results anyway).

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	60.41%
GeForce 9800 GX2	6990	45.72%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	5651	17.80%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	4797
GeForce 9800 GTX	3805	26.07%
Radeon HD 3870	2977	61.14%

3DMark Vantage Professional 1.0.1 - 1920x1200 - Performance	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	6106	63.92%
GeForce 9800 GX2	5379	44.40%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	4336	16.40%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	3725
GeForce 9800 GTX	2891	28.85%
Radeon HD 3870	2269	64.17%

3DMark Vantage Professional 1.0.1 - 2560x1600 - Performance	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	3549	73.12%
GeForce 9800 GX2	2910	41.95%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	2382	16.20%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	2050
GeForce 9800 GTX	1557	31.66%
Radeon HD 3870	1244	64.79%

3DMark Vantage Professional 1.0.1 - 1680x1050 - Extreme	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	6005	74.31%
GeForce 9800 GX2	4858	41.02%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	3567	3.54%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	3445
GeForce 9800 GTX	2703	27.45%
Radeon HD 3870	1855	85.71%

3DMark Vantage Professional 1.0.1 - 1920x1200 - Extreme	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	4732	71.89%
GeForce 9800 GX2	3508	27.42%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	2753
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	2669	3.15%
GeForce 9800 GTX	2038	35.08%
Radeon HD 3870	1439	91.31%