People have been so caught up in the benchmark game, some of the most important factors of gaming get forgotten; a point which graphics card manufacturers take advantage of over and over. 3DMark is a good comparison test, but gives people a warped point of view about gaming performance.

If we ask ourselves a practical question like “What do I need to play Game X at maximum detail settings?”

It’s excess to requirements to scrutinise benchmarks, extract the statement “I can get an average of 80fps with Card Y and 85fps with Card Z” and then choose Card Z. What you’re looking for gaming, is a frame rate of 60 or higher to be comfortable, so frame rates in the 100s are actually pretty worthless. To put this another way: There is no game the GeForce 7800 GTX can play that the Radeon X1800 XT cannot, and there never will be.

Equally, “What settings can I run new Game X at?” is a common practical question

As a gamer and someone who’s owned or used a graphics card from each manufacturer at every generation, I can assure you that there’s a ocean of difference between one generation and another, but very little difference between two models from the same generation. In the details, some games run better than others; for every ATI favouring Source Engine, there’s an NVIDIA favouring Doom III Engine; but the actually gaming enjoyment is not affected by performance.

“Which model has the best visual quality?”

This can stir up the hornets nest. Accusations fly as shader code replacement and filtering optimisations are discovered, and those of us who simply want to play our games are stuck with visual inconstancies and anomalies. It can’t be helped though, because time and time and time again, people say “Buy Card Z! It has a better 3DMark!”.

Benchmarking as a tool for decision making only serves to divide between graphics cards that can do something, and graphics cards that cannot. Sure, if you’re buying graphics cards to race them, pay close attention to the benchmarks, but if you’re buying a graphics card to play games, choose whichever card in a class you personally like the best.

Try not to forget you’re supposed to be playing games with them. :P