Lab Report - Conclusion
"3DMark03 has combined some pretty artwork into a set of four nice demo scenes. But, these scenes are so distant from real game applications that 3DMark03 just doesn't make it as a benchmark. Lacking any similarity to actual games, it misrepresents the gaming experience, and doesn't arm the consumer with the right information to make a purchase decision. It also forces hardware vendors to waste valuable engineering resources focusing on artificially fabricated cases that will never benefit real games. In the end, the consumer loses. So, where do you find a true gamers' benchmark? How about running actual games? Most popular games include a benchmark mode for just this purpose. Doom3, Unreal Tournament 2003, and Serious Sam Second Encounter are all far better indicators of current and upcoming game performance. And, because the vendors of these games have licensed their game engines to other game developers, you can expect that the next generation of games will have these game engines at their core. Today's consumers no longer have to rely on artificial attempts at mimicking games. In most cases, consumer's favorite games already have a ready-made benchmark built right in."