“Intel may not be playing fair, though. We recently learned AMD
has notified Futuremark that Intel’s 15.15.4.1872 Graphics Media
Accelerator drivers for Windows 7 incorporate performance
optimizations that specifically target the benchmark, so we decided
to investigate.“We tested 3DMark Vantage 1.0.1 with these drivers on a G41
Express-based Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2H motherboard running the Windows
7 x64 release-to-manufacturing build, a Core 2 Duo E6300, 4GB of
DDR2-800 memory, and a Raptor WD1500ADFD hard drive.“We first ran the benchmark normally. Then, we renamed the
3DMark executable from “3DMarkVantage.exe” to “3DMarkVintage.exe”.
And—wouldn’t you know it?—there was a substantial
performance difference between the two.”