Benchmarking with Doom 3 can be very tricky. The game itself is limited to rendering only 60 fps by the game engine. This limit is removed however when running the benchmarking modes. This can make things a bit tricky for the benchmark results. The goal is to find a setting with the highest graphics that will still have just above the 60 frames per second for the best graphical experience.
The benchmark tests were conducted using the demo001 included with the retail release of the game using the Doom 3 console commands. All benchmarks were conducted with the high quality graphics settings and run multiple times to properly cache the graphics data.
AOpen's Aeolus 6800-DVD256 has more than enough performance without the filtering enabled to break the 60 frames per second rate that the Doom 3 game engine is restricted too. With minor anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering enabled, the game is still playable albeit with some frame rate slow down. High levels of filtering are possible but the gameplay will suffer from significant frame drop off.
The higher clock rates of the 6800GT really make a difference in Doom 3 boosting performance as much as 30% over the 6800 processor. While the AOpen Aeolus struggles with the frames with higher filtering, the 6800GT has no problems at all.
