Read that:

http://www.futuremark.com/news/?newsarticle=200303/2003032 403#200303/2003032403

Even Futuremark does not like the results with those hacked drivers!

Hahahaha

http://www.futuremark.com/news/?newsarticle=200303/2003032 403

eeeermz ... i question your benchmark ...

why do u use 3dmark-optimized drivers for nvidia and WHQL drivers for the others? ??? that makes your benchmark not fair against the competition?

here is a quote:
FYI, we just decided to disable (at least for the time being) all current submitted results using the questionable drivers, Detonator 42.67, 42.68 and 42.69. This means that the current results are not deleted, but disbaled from being published. We encourage you to use only officially released, and/or WHQL'ed drivers, as results run with the above-mentioned driver versions will be disabled.

The reason for this is that the drivers have been officially stated as optimized for 3DMark03, and we can not verify the purity and integrity of the drivers. We are investigating the drivers and their effect on 3DMark03 - both performance and the rendering quality (ie. image quality).

Originally the drivers were supposedly released to a group of websites (and/or other media) as an example, but unfortunately got leaked for public use.

We are striving for allowing only officially released & WHQL'ed drivers in the future.

http://www.futuremark.com/news/?newsarticle=200303/2003032 403#200303/2 003032403

I've been reading all the comments and I am appalled by the rudeness and insensitivity towards the people of xbit labs who compiled this review. First of all, the article is not biased. As the title suggests, it simply test contemporary cards in 3D mark03. One would then think that it would be natural to use the optimised drivers for it. ATI has failed to produce some tweaked drivers and it that is their problem. The writers, does not (and if so very rarely) conclude that the Geforce FX would out perform any of the ATI products in any game situations. Also in regards to the absence of the radeon 9800, it does not mean a thing. Maybe the reviewers did not have access to one. Anyway, I don’t see anyone complain about the absence of the Matrox Parhelia which is also a contemporary card. Those who complained against the “bias” shown by xbit labs show a great bias towards the products of ATI. Don’t get me wrong, I am a great fan of ATI products but I see the rudeness shown towards a review that is done for the public and for a greater insight into technology for others appalling.

" One would then think that it would be natural to use the optimised drivers for it. ATI has failed to produce some tweaked drivers and it that is their problem."

WTF? What's the point in optimizing and tewaking drivers for that benchmark? A benchmark should measure the performance of a card and it's drivers _as they are_, and the result should give an indication about the real performance. Benchmark-optimized drivers are an attempt to LIE to the customers about the real power of the card/driver combination, nothing else. To follow your logic would indicate that the "speedhack" for 3DMark2001 is perfectly ok, if someone does not use it to get higher scores it's his fault? Heck, you might even say that cheating in CS is no problem, because it's everybodys own fault if they play fair...

Dar May I point you to this article
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8498

and read on nvdia's own forum full of nvidia fannies
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=558a7b8f8 afd74bdedb6ee210b3fbc34&threadid=8487

Now you dont think our comments hold water? Then you are ignorant. Futuremark will not even list nvidia benches with "nvidia 3dmark03 optimized drivers".

As far as them getting a hold of a ATI 9800... They are only 10X easier to get a hold of then the nV 5800...
see for your self... www.pricewatch.com or www.pricegrabber.com or anywhere else you choose. 9800 pro's = available 5800 = wait list

Once again Nvidia wins at pure speed. However, other comparisons have shown that the current crop of Nvidia cards (NV3x) do not employ true anisotropic filtering in most modes and they have a weaker AA implementation.

When the graphics are forced to equivalent image quality most of Nvidia's speed advantage vanishes. and it's often replaced with a speed deficit.

In regards to Jadawin’s response to my response; again there seems to be yet another misinterpretation that hints a shallow and extremely biased reading. I agree about my ambiguity in expressing my “logic” and in doing so I apologize. However, I did not intend to support the notion of “cheating”. I simply meant to take advantage of what you have. It is like using a calculator in a maths exam with added programs installed in it. It is legal but frowned upon. It delivers the goods and maybe better, yet is frowned upon. Having microscopic writing on a cheat sheet is frowned upon but yet, the student who possesses it has a distinct advantage over the others. This is my logic. Not cheating in CS. And also, in posting that 3D center benchmark article completely proves my other point in entirety that xbit labs did not whatsoever conclude that the Geforce FX would come out in front of the Radeon 9700 in any real game situations.

Now in response to D0M1N8R, if you read my little response CAREFULLY, I did not say that it is harder to get a Radeon 9800 that it is to get a Geforce FX. I simply said, in a hypothetical manner, that MAYBE, the reviewers did not have the access to one. This brings me to draw a point that I failed to in the previous response. Wouldn’t the use of the “tweaked” drivers show a bias towards the Radeon 9700? After all, xbit labs did publish a news segment that commented on the poor results the WHQL drivers showed in the test. Wouldn’t this then show that the Geforce FX is not as powerful as it seems because in the back of your talented minds (that is a compliment just in case you take this in the wrong manner as well) the drivers the xbit labs people are using is “tweaked”?

In conclusion, I apologies if I have offended anybody with my two (inclusive) responses. I was just trying to highlight the rudeness some people show towards the people of xbit labs. Afterall, it is a website and all you readers out there do have the freedom to read it or leave it. You do not have the moral right to “bag” for one of the better words the people who try to offer their services for the good of others. It is like saying to a chef that the way they cook something is foul when many other people seem to like it. I admire the wisdom some of the writers of the responses show in the technological world and I admit that I am not in a very credible position to argue the minds of possible degree holders since I am only a fan of graphic cards and no more. This would be my last response about this matter because I do not want to insult xbit labs by creating an open debate about my logic and reasoning. Nothing you say can sway my opinion, even if I am wrong and you are right so I wish you do not reply to this in such a way it is solely directed to me because it will be a great insult to the webmasters. I only voiced my opinions like everybody else. Nothing more, nothing less.

(sorry about the typos. I can't be bothered proof reading this.)

I have read this article and have a few things to say. Using a tweaked driver is not very nice to end users. There is still people that doesnt know much about the cards more than to the performance. Using a tweaked driver can misslead a buyer to buy a card he wont be satified with. If I had been totally new to this, I might have been missgiuded by the article and got myself a GForce FX instead of a 9700pro. I have been a true Nvidia fan until now, but after all problems and halftrues about the FX card I have now decided to give ATI a try with buying a 9700pro card. I do think that a site like this should not use tweaked drivers if they want to call themselves a serious hardware site.

Thank you for your feedback :) Let me answer some of your comments and concerns:
1. We do understand that 42.68 drivers are optimized for 3DMark. However, no one prevented ATI from making the same drivers for their products. Moreover, we won’t state that the newest ATI drivers do not have optimization for 3DMark03.
2. Since WHQL-drivers from NVIDIA for GeForceFX haven’t been released yet at the time the editor ran the tests, he was free to use any drivers we liked.
3. This article is not aiming to determine which graphics card is the fastest and which card would be the best buy for you. The article shows, which solution is faster exactly in 3DMark03.
4. We do respect the author’s opinion, even though we ourselves do believe that 3DMark03 is not the best way to reveal the performance of graphics cards in the today’s games and games of the future. We are going to have a GeForceFX review coming out tomorrow on March 27, which will prove this point of ours.
5. In this new article about GeForceFX we will discuss the performance of this solution in real games and will compare the results with those obtained in 3DMark03. Then you will see what we are talking about.

Ok, its the 28th now. Where is the review you were taling about Anna? You said the 27th

Thanxs

Mongoled

you can send Testing Methodology