The 3DMark 2003 Pro benchmark has seen its fair share of controversy in the past, but as long as the mainstream gaming community is using it, we'll present comparison scores. It does offer a view at potential DirectX 9 gaming performance, as well as providing a specific CPU test and a fully-featured Image Quality suite and Sound Testing feature that were lacking in the 2001SE version. We're also testing with the latest 340 patch installed to ensure a level playing field.
3DMark 2003 Pro gives us another view of potential 3D performance, and shows the Verto GeForce 6800 Ultra falling slightly back of the Radeon X800 XT. The NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT also drops back into the pack, but still well ahead of the last-generation GeForce FX 5950 Ultra and Radeon 9800 XT cards.
The 3DMark 2003 Pro testing with 4X AA and 8X AF settings really doesn't show us anything new, and the Verto GeForce 6800 Ultra continues to trail the Radeon X800 XT in overall performance. One interesting observation is that the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT score at 1280x1024 is about on par with the Radeon X800 XT at 1600x1200.
The latest NVIDIA ForceWare drivers offer a range of overclocking options, including auto and manual overclocking, along with the standard "auto sensing" of the optimal core and memory speeds. We ran the Verto GeForce 6800 Ultra through the gamut of overclock tests, and finally settled on a stable setting of 460 MHz core and 1.16 GHz memory. These allowed us total stability in all game tests, as well as a noticeable overclock that should come in handy with high-end 3D game performance.
The first test involves standard detail settings and a resolution of 1280x1024. The results are displayed as a percentage increase compared to default clock speeds, and although both Halo and DOOM 3 showed some gains, the majority of tests showed only limited framerate increases. The default detail settings at 1280x1024 simply doesn't tax a powerful card like the Verto GeForce 6800 Ultra enough for higher clock speeds to pay off.
The next chart maintains the 1280x1024 resolutions, but increases detail settings to 4X anti-aliasing and 8X anisotropic filtering. Under this scenario, the Verto GeForce 6800 Ultra's higher clock speeds really pay off, and all of the game test display some sort of framerate jump, with the majority in the 6-7% range. This again demonstrates that for a video card as powerful as the GeForce 6800 Ultra, you need to be running a very high-end game, or the extra MHz simply go to waste.
The last overclock chart utilizes the "auto overclocking" feature of the ForceWare drivers, and keeps the same 1280x1024, 4X AA/8X AF settings as in the previous test. As evidenced by the lower framerate increases, going the manual route is still the higher-performance option.
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