Do you think at more extreme settings, the gap between AMD and Intel systems will decrease?

Intel processors have more brute strength, plain and simple.

The cost/Mhz or Watts/Mhz war is is another question. Certainly these comparisons are valid in many business cases; however, when one throws 3D gaming benches into the contest, then only brute force matters.

I know that Intel kicks the shizzle out of AMD in the highhighend, just comparing. Remember I wasn't the one who turned this thread into a flamewar.

all points well taken. A question I ask myself is all the extra money worth the extra frame rates and performance that I wont really see or use ( for myself personally only). The eye isnt going to see any much if any difference between a 80 or a 200 frame rate - other than the fps number on the screen given by fraps.

I can only speak for myself, but as amazing performing as the intel cpu's are, I dont have a need for such a performer. Sure, if I was looking at shooting for the stars on a benchmark score, Intel, no question - and you can be as much of an amd fan as you want(like I am), but numbers dont lie.

I simply do amd because the performance that I need is there and the cost is great. Now if I had a better job and had a little money on the side to throw around, I would go intel. They are stronger. But a cpu has alot of categories to be judged upon, most have already been mentioned. Again for me, it comes down to cost/ performance / watts and in that order.

I built my gaming rig for the games that I like to play, thats it. Not to have the biggest machine on the block or for bragging rights on who got the biggest/best. I would say if it works great for you, be happy with it. There are people that don't have anything.

If you have the top intel machine, then who ever can do it, hats off cause i think thats awesome and if I could, I definitely would too lol

I got a default 3dmark score of 13313. 12645 on all max at 19x12, nothing overclocked.
On the PII 945

Benchmarketeering at it's worst!

I think we can all agree 3DM06 is outdated. Can't we!

Sadly FM's to busy making games to even fix the problems with the 'new and improved' ORB, let alone make a good synthetic benchmark.

Indeed, but each bench in the FM series has its own unique quality for testing certain features of the system.

Is it a good bench today? I think not, especially with the default settings being the base line....1280x1024...give me a break.

I got a default 3dmark score of 14067. 12785 on all max at 19x12, @300GHz+850/1200.
I got a default 3dmark score of 19659. 15324 on all max at 19x12, @3.6GHz+900/1300 with glitches (GPU related).
On the new 9.10's

All i gotta do now is wait for some sorta windows 7 3dmark 2k9 heh.

Is this 3DM 06 you're benching?

The results seem low,

I just ran a 1920x1200 on my i7 965 with single 280GTX and got 16451 w/ Windows 7 all at default speeds.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=12279727

Yeah i'm running it just to compare, the numbers are more meaningless than votes in Afghan elections IMO.

I got a Vantage score of 0 in Windows 7. Beat that.

You need the patch

Nahh, I just need to uninstall it

Sapphire 5870 @ 1030/1300
Intel Q9450 @ 3.5ghz

1030, what did ya use to get the core that high, rivatuner? Shows how much I look around the interwibble.

I use MSI Afterburner, done by the same guy that developed Riva Tuner.
Asus Smart Dr. should work as well.