3dmark - bloatware or what ?

[peterwalkley]

So I've got a new graphics card arriving today from our favourite stoke-based haribo retailer as my current one looks to be dying ... and out of curiosity I thought I'd benchmark before and after performance.

I go to look at 3dmark and its a 1 Gig download ??? What the four-letter worded sweary ???? Its a benchmark for gawd's sake ....

I'm just stunned.

 

[peterwalkley]

A gig seemed just bonkers but having seen it running I understand why its so large. Murphy's law has struck though - seems like the old Gfx card wasn't to blame, it looks like my mobo was dying. Its not working with the old or new cards now - can't even get to the BIOS screen. Today is clearly a double portion of friday 13th Grrrr.

I'm working through the troubleshooting guide from the general hardware forum ... but if I can't get it sorted during tomorrow then I notice the 7.5% april discount is exceptionally good timing. This is a build from 4 years ago and i was hoping to hold out for Haswell to replace it, so its either live with a laptop for a while or use the discount.

Either way its a new mobo + cpu as a minimum - my old system is a 1366 socket.