Page 8 - AquaMark 3
AquaMark 3 from Massive Development
The latest graphics cards on the market are almost all DirectX9 compatible these days, and we also see an increasing number of games utilizing the new DX9 features. To be able to see how well a graphics cards is performing in this new challenging DirectX 9 environment, AquaMark was developed.
The AquaMark3 benchmark delivers scores for specific hardware components as well as an overall score for the entire system. AquaMark3 is highly qualified to meet the needs of gamers because it's as close as possible to a typical game application. The AquaMark benchmarking series is based directly on the huge code and data base of the AquaNox games and the underlying krass game engine."
In the past we have used AquaMark 2.3 in our benchmark suite and although still a reputable application, Massive figured it was time for the next best thing. This is AquaMark 3, a benchmark that will utilize some of the finest DirectX 9 capabilities like Pixel and Vertex Shaders 2.0, and yet is by far not as Shader dependant as Half-Life is, for example. You will notice that in the overall results later in this article.
AquaMark 3, however, is not solely a DirectX9 benchmark; if you are working with a DirectX 8 or 7 compatible graphics card, you will still be able to use it just with a lot of graphical features missing. Make no mistake, AquaMark3 is a DirectX 9 benchmark. But since it's based on a real game engine it has fallbacks to DirectX 8 and even DirectX 7 making this software not a 100% DX9 benchmark.
Download: Aquamark 3 (63 MB)
First let's have a look at RAW performance, no Anisotropic filtering is enabled here, and Anti Aliasing has been disabled.
AquaMark 3800x600
1024x768
1280x1024
1600x1200
FX 5600 Ultra 45.2324
21
17
13
FX 5600 Ultra 51.7524
21
16
13
9600 256 3.629
23
17
13
9600 Pro 3.631
25
19
14
9700 Pro 3.646
41
33
26
9800 Pro 3.649
45
37
30
9800 Pro 3.749
45
38
30
FX 5900 Ultra 45.2347
44
39
33
FX 5900 Ultra 51.7550
47
40
34
As you can see the names look a bit funny. The numbers behind them represent the driver used. Without Anisotropic filtering and AA enabled here the results are in favor for NVIDIA in the high-end range. This will change when we enable some IQ settings though. As you can see the Radeon 9600 is faster than the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra series.
4xAA 8xAF 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200FX 5600 Ultra 45.23 17 13 10 7FX 5600 Ultra 51.75 18 14 11 89600 256 3.6 21 16 12 89600 Pro 3.6 24 18 13 9FX 5900 Ultra 45.23 37 31 23 189700 Pro 3.6 39 32 24 19FX 5900 Ultra 51.75 42 35 26 219800 Pro 3.6 43 36 27 219800 Pro 3.7 43 36 28 21Again you can see the Radeon 9600 is faster than the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra series. It's obvious that the mighty Radeon series have the overall performance edge here, especially the mid-range dominates. The results as demonstrated here on all cards have Anti Aliasing at 4x and Anisotropic Filtering at 8x enabled.