First up on the benchmark train is a load of Futuremark tests, which will give us a nice picture of our system’s performance. Note that all of the below systems are based on Sandy Bridge and have a single graphics card, but we’ll see how significant the Erebus GT’s better specs impact the scores.
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| Futuremark PCMark Vantage |
| Simulated Application Performance |
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This synthetic benchmark suite simulates a range of real-world scenarios and workloads, stressing various subsystem in the process. Everything you'd want to do with your PC -- watching HD movies, music compression, image editing, gaming, and so forth -- is represented here, and most of the tests are multi-threaded, making this a good indicator of all-around performance.
The Erebus GT has its way with the other systems in PCMark Vantage, more than doubling even the second-closest score. Here we see how much of the system’s performance is impacted by the Erebus GT’s wickedly overclocked CPU and speedy storage drives (the SSD and 7200RPM HDD). The graphics card barely got a workout.
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| Futuremark PCMark 7 |
| Simulated Application Performance |
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Futuremark's PCMark 7 is the latest version of the PCMark whole-system benchmarking suite and combines more than 25 individual workloads covering storage, computation, image and video manipulation, Web browsing, and gaming. It's specifically designed to cover the full range of PC hardware, from netbooks and tablets, to notebooks and desktops.
Although the Erebus GT once again mops the floor with the competition, the delta between it and the field is much smaller. iBUYPOWER wants to let the 7970 graphics card shine, so let’s see how it does in more graphically-focused Futuremark test.
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| Futuremark 3DMark Vantage and 3DMark 11 |
| Simulated Gaming Performance |
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The latest version of Futuremark's synthetic 3D gaming benchmark, 3DMark11, is specifically bound to Windows Vista and 7-based systems because it uses the advanced visual technologies that are only available with DirectX 11, which isn't available on previous versions of Windows. 3DMark11 isn't simply a port of 3DMark Vantage to DirectX 11, though. With this latest version of the benchmark, Futuremark has incorporated four new graphics tests, a physics tests, and a new combined test. We tested the graphics cards here with 3DMark11's Performance preset option, as well as ran the system through a 3DMark Vantage run, which focuses on DirectX 10.
Well, if there was any doubt, we can put it to rest. The Erebus GT is a graphics monster compared to the competition; it looks like that 7970 is doing what iBUYPOWER hoped it would.
Same song, second verse: The Erebus GT beats out the field again, interestingly by roughly the same percentage.
