Laptop gaming benchmarks

Most available GPU benchmarks are 3DMark 06 scores, but this is an old benchmark, and quite CPU dependent. Some reference sites, such as Notebookcheck (I know it's not very well considered here use also gaming data, but at low resolutions (1024x768 max).

What benchmarks you think should be the most widely performed to give a good estimation of the gaming potential of a laptop? 3DMark Vantage? Crysis using several settings? Others? Of course performing lots of benchmarks in lots of different games would be the best, but I'm thinking about something less time- and money-consuming to be widely performed by users and to be contributed here or in other places. Just "run this test(s) and post your scores".

What do you think?

 

Right now, Crysis demo and the Devil May Cry 4 demo are the best free, easy to acquire tools that will give tangible comparisons.

 

Yes, I forgot Devil May Cry 4, and you just reminded me the World in Conflict Demo.

Is the Crysis benchmark tool available in the demo? I thought it was a download for the full game.

 

The .bat benchmarks are included, yes. You could also look to the demos of The Last Remnant, Company Of Heroes and Lost Planet for free benchmarking tools.

 

wic demo is very much cpu dependent.

 

Good to know, thanks. What about Crysis? I heard is quite CPU dependent, too. Do you think any other of the already suggested demos is better for GPU testing?

 

The DMC4 demo is less CPU dependent than the other demos mentioned.

Some of the reviewers on this forum tend to adopt the "more is better" approach for benchmarks, simply gather a lot of games which are widely played and give a report on the fps readings over a standardised series of settings and resolutions.

 

Thanks, that's good to know.

As some games tend to favor either ATI or Nvidia, others depend more or less on the CPU or scale well or bad with multiple GPUs, I agree that it's good to test many games. But it's hard to get benchmarks for all available graphics cards, so it's important to have a few tests that any user could run and contribute.

 

3DMark06 isn't "old", as it taxes most current gen notebooks quite well. It also is not that CPU dependent except for the CPU tests, of course.

That being said, I would like to see most games offer a benchmark in their demos for comparison purposes.

 

I remember reading once that some laptops (alienware in particular) had drivers more designed to ace the 3DMark06 score than to play games (that is, the performance of the benchmark was not always an indication of gaming performance of the system...) Anyone know if this is true, or is the 3DMark06 a good indication of the gaming power available?

 

There was some discussion / debate over this years ago between ATI and nVidia, but that has since vanished. Which is why it is always best to use more than one benchmark when comparing performance. Of course best to find a game benchmark in the type of games you need the best performance.

 

It also happens than Intel cards get better scores in 3DMark than in games, isn't it?

 

3DMark06 are free... and easy to use
Far Cry2 has benchmarking also..