EARLIER THIS WEEK we saw that, even within a single benchmark vendor, Futuremark, the two subsequent test generations, 3Dmark 06 and 3Dmark Vantage, scale quite differently depending on the CPU and GPU configuration changes.

What about a generic PC performance benchmark that takes into account all of the PC componentry - how would it scale then? Will the - more Intel preferred - test mix change the CPU vs GPU influence dramatically?

To stay within the family, I ran the new PCmark Vantage, 64-bit version of course, on this Vista 64 configuration. 4 GB of OCZ heat-piped RAM made sure that memory swapping doesn't become the spoiling factor.

I limited the run to five particular configurations, combining dual core or quad core 3.2GHz CPU with single or dual (two or four GPUs total) GeForce 9800GX2 cards.

As you can see, the differences are there - but this time, it is the CPU change that leads the way to higher scores. The GPU improvements, however, aren't totally unnoticeable - if you want to call some obvious score reductions that way. Namely, in both cases, when you add the second graphics card, the memory score would go down, more so in the dual-core case.

In summary, the previous "chef's recipe" stays: go ahead with a balanced combo. Good dual-core CPU with a single GPU, midrange quad-core with dual GPU, and top quad-core or more with either top-end dual GPU (read: dual GTX280) or quad-GPU setup. µ