My brother's Athlon XP 3000 was showing its age recently, when he tried to run Beowulf on it. The game simply wouldn't start - which suggested a new PC was required.
He's opted for an Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (@ 2.66GHz); 4GB Geil PC6400 DDR2 along with a GeForce 8800GTS. Having installed Vista Home Premium on it last night, I decided to run 3D Mark 2006 - to see how this new hardware compares to others that I've run the test on.
I know 3D Mark scores should be taken with a pinch of salt - but 9035 is insane when you compare it to Red19's 3892. That's almost (but not quite) 3 times the score, which is comparing a 2.6GHz (overclocked) AM2 Dual Core to a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, with the former sporting a 7800GT and the latter utilising the 8800GTS. It just goes to show how much technology has come on in only a year.
What score do you get with 3D Mark 2006?