Graphics cards and CPUs ranked by performance

[J T]

These sites are awesome if you are looking to buy a new gaming PC/laptop, or if you just want to see how your machine stacks up when compared to others.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/

http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/

[s1mplehumar]

Bookmarked! Errr, according to delicious I already have this bookmarked. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

J T gets another gold star for a highly useful post.

[isiolia]

Personally, I find it to be a harder source to put stock in due to lack of details.

Their numbers are based on user-submitted scores, averaged out. However, whenever I look at the list I find things that don't line up based on controlled, documented benchmarks. For example, basically any other data out there would indicate that an HD6870 is at best nipping at the heels of an HD5870, and likewise for the 6850/5850 comparison (in fact, usually you'd only see them on par with the 6850 being overclocked. Yet, PassMark represents the 6870 as better than the 5870, and likewise for the 6850 and 5850.
Of course, are these being skewed by overclocked cards? Driver revisions? Poor system setup? No way to tell.

Not necessarily completely invalid, but most of these things do have some varied results. Different CPUs may do better at different tasks, for example, but in that they're just boiled down to one score averaged between all submissions (and one that seems to heavily favor threading over core performance).

IMO, the results can be interesting, but should also be taken with a grain of salt, and cross-checked before making a purchasing decision.

[J T]

Personally, I find it to be a harder source to put stock in due to lack of details.

Their numbers are based on user-submitted scores, averaged out. However, whenever I look at the list I find things that don't line up based on controlled, documented benchmarks. For example, basically any other data out there would indicate that an HD6870 is at best nipping at the heels of an HD5870, and likewise for the 6850/5850 comparison (in fact, usually you'd only see them on par with the 6850 being overclocked. Yet, PassMark represents the 6870 as better than the 5870, and likewise for the 6850 and 5850.
Of course, are these being skewed by overclocked cards? Driver revisions? Poor system setup? No way to tell.

Not necessarily completely invalid, but most of these things do have some varied results. Different CPUs may do better at different tasks, for example, but in that they're just boiled down to one score averaged between all submissions (and one that seems to heavily favor threading over core performance).

IMO, the results can be interesting, but should also be taken with a grain of salt, and cross-checked before making a purchasing decision.

Good disclaimer.

The site is great for getting a quick sense of how graphics cards and CPUs stack up against each other, but to know the answer with certainty requires a bit more careful background research. I still haven't seen anything else that makes it so easy to get a quick sense of which graphics cards and CPUs are the best though (Tom's Hardware Guides being the next best thing, imo). I think this is one of the major barriers to entry for converting gamers to the PC, so these sites provide a useful service to those that just want to quickly know which parts are best Plus, since the passmark results are updated daily, it's better than finding an in depth graphics card guide that is a year or more old (which always seems to happen to me when I need this kind of info).

[s1mplehumar]

^ Valid points. "Professional" benchmarking is usually conducted with components at stock settings, and if the components are adjusted through overclocking annotations are included in the assessment. I didn't realize those scores were the median from user submissions. Very interesting.

[isiolia]

It's something I'd looked at before around when the Llano desktop CPUs were hitting. Someone on another forum pointed at that site for proof of its merit, which was somewhat contrary to...every review article I could find.

As for another resource, while it is limiting (and not without the occasional mistake), Anantech has their Bench utility, which pulls benchmark scores from their various articles to let you compare CPUs and GPUs. Unfortunately, that does make it less comprehensive, since they don't benchmark every last model/variant over and over, but there's still a fair amount of stuff in there.

[Pulsar_t]

And for laptops this site is indispensable

http://www.notebookcheck.net/

[J T]

And for laptops this site is indispensable

http://www.notebookcheck.net/

Oh yes, I used that site when making my recent purchase of a new laptop during Black Friday (here's what I bought). It's a very handy site, though it seems to have abnormal page load times for me. Still, great info in there.

[sunflakes]

Bookmarked. I'm planning to buy new VC and MB.

[EvilRyu2099]

These sites are awesome if you are looking to buy a new gaming PC/laptop, or if you just want to see how your machine stacks up when compared to others.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/

http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/

For awhile the i5 2500K OC'd was highest performance for games like SC 2... I think the next PC I'm getting will have the i7 2600k if I can find one affordable.. Going to have to start off with a mediocre VC at first though to stay within budget but I figured getting a monster CPU is probably the 1st priority since you can replace the VC..