AquaMark 3 is a relatively new DirectX 9 benchmark, and although it does not correspond to an actual game, it does use the same Krass engine as found in products such as Aquanox 2 and Spellforce. AquaMark 3 also supports new features such as Hyper-Threading, Pixel Shader and Vertex Shader 2.0, and uses a wide range of DirectX 9 effects and features. For this review, we've tested the basic performance benchmark in standard 1024x768 32-bit mode, and offer up both Overall and CPU scores.
AquaMark 3 is one very demanding DirectX 9 benchmark that uses all facets of a gaming system, and we again see the Celeron D 335 coming up a bit short. Even when overclocked to 3.55 GHz, it can't move past the Pentium 4-2.8E and can barely surpass the Sempron 3100+ at its base clock speed. The Sempron 3100+ once again shows its performance edge in higher-end 3D tests, and edges out the Intel competition, while naturally falling a bit short of the Athlon 64 3400+.
The AquaMark 3 CPU performance scores are a much closer race, with the overclocked Sempron 3100+ and Celeron D 335 putting up a pretty good fight. In the end, it's the Sempron 3100+ that comes out the winner, and again the overclocked Celeron D 335 can't move past the Pentium 4-2.8E. The overclocked Sempron 3100+ isn't as impressive as in past benchmarks, and falls well back of the Pentium 4-3.0E.
Halo: Combat Evolved is a hot, action adventure game that not only features luscious indoor and outdoor graphics and a killer story, but some very innovative gameplay as well. Our Halo test uses the default timedemo, while also enabling 2.0 shaders for all benchmark testing.
Halo is another 3D game test with video card limitations, but still allows a relative performance comparison. It's really the same story for the Celeron D 335, and when overclocked, it again can't match the performance of the Pentium 4-2.8E. The Sempron 3100+ at 2.15 GHz clears the Intel competition, and falls just short of the Athlon 64 3400+.
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