Time for the test: Benchmarking
For the first time in my life, I bought benchmarking software. But it seemed like I should use the latest, if not the greatest option available, which still seems to be — surprisingly — 3DMark from Futuremark. There are certainly other ways to benchmark a gaming machine, but the shinest new “Vantage” version of 3DMark seems like a decent way to do it.
So here’s to my $7.
(Of course the registration key didn’t work the first time, but let’s not get hung up on details!)
The first run is fairly straightforward: “Performance” settings, everything default, no Norton screening on — or even yet installed. (Okay, a little more about 3DMark: Their demos are pretty and certainly impressive still, but I do sort of miss the days when seeing a 3DMark demo meant you were about to see your PC do something of which you didn’t realize it was capable — even at 2 frames per second.)
Drumroll… P7811 (the “P” is for “Performance” mode), with a GPU score of 8595, which shouldn’t change while running Norton, but a CPU score of 6134, which might.
And with the Norton Internet Security 2009 package installed…7813, with a GPU score of 8588 and a CPU score of 6147.
What the hell! That doesn’t seem right, but I’m not unhappy to hear it. I’m going to disable Norton and run again.
Well, weird. It ran faster that time overall — P7839, GPU 8633, CPU 6144 — than the previous test.
Now for a little Fallout 3. Seems to run basically the same, although there are strange little hangs sometimes when bringing up the statistics in V.A.T.S. But they’re still there when I disable virus protection from Norton, so I’m going to blame the new patch and not Norton.
I wish I had more time to test the Internet Security package, but like I pathetically forecasted from my first post, me and homebuilt gaming PCs are nothing but drama.
