ID Software Doom 3 1.3	Source: id Software

Doom 3 takes advantage of the latest videocard technology and pushes the processing power of the CPU to its absolute limit. At its highest setting, Ultra quality, texture sizes pass the 500MB mark which means even tomorrow's videocards will have a hard time running everything. The frame rates in the game itself are locked at 60 fps so anything above that point is wasted. Each test is run three times with the third run being recorded.

ID Software Doom 3 1.3
HQ 1024x768	FPS	Ranking
Asus A8N-VM (GF 6150 200/400 939 FX-60 Onboard Video)	8.2
Asus A8N-VM (GF 6150 200/400 939 FX-60 GF 8800GTS 320MB)	122.7
Albatron KM51PV-AM2 (GF 6150 200/800 AM2 X2 5000+ Onboard Video)	8.9
Albatron KM51PV-AM2 (GF 6150 200/800 AM2 X2 5000+ GF 8800GTS 320MB)	142.6
Biostar TF7050-MM2 (GF7050 200/800 Onboard Video)	12.4
Biostar TF7050-M2 (GF7050 200/800 GF 8800GTS 320MB)	144.3
MSI K9AGM2-FIH (AMD 690G 200/800 Onboard Video)	9.9
MSI K9AGM2-FIH (AMD 690G 200/800 GF8800GTS 320MB)	140.7
ECS AMD690GM-M2 (AMD 690G 200/800 Onboard Video)	9.6
ECS AMD690GM-M2 (AMD 690G 200/800 GF 8800GTS 320MB)	141.5

The onboard AMD 690G graphics card does not have enough power to play Doom 3, but then again none of the onboard video options do. The ECS AMD690GM-M2 can be turned into a gaming motherboard quite easily by installing a stand alone videocard. Framerates with a GeForce 8800GTS 320MB videocard are quite nice in Vista!

Sierra FEAR 1.08	Source: Sierra

FEAR is Sierra's latest first person shooter which relies heavily on DirectX 9 features. With its "Soft Shadows" feature enabled, even the fastest videocards run at a crawl, FEAR is definitely the new benchmark for future FPS games to follow.

Sierra FEAR 1.08
1024x768	FPS	Ranking
Asus A8N-VM (GF 6150 200/400 939 FX-60 Onboard Video)	4
Asus A8N-VM (GF 6150 200/400 939 FX-60 GF 8800GTS 320MB)	167
Albatron KM51PV-AM2 (GF 6150 200/800 AM2 X2 5000+ Onboard Video)	4
Albatron KM51PV-AM2 (GF 6150 200/800 AM2 X2 5000+ GF 8800GTS 320MB)	163
Biostar TF7050-MM2 (GF7050 200/800 Onboard Video)	5
Biostar TF7050-M2 (GF7050 200/800 GF 8800GTS 320MB)	167
MSI K9AGM2-FIH (AMD 690G 200/800 Onboard Video)	4
MSI K9AGM2-FIH (AMD 690G 200/800 GF8800GTS 320MB)	160
ECS AMD690GM-M2 (AMD 690G 200/800 Onboard Video)	3
ECS AMD690GM-M2 (AMD 690G 200/800 GF 8800GTS 320MB)	157

In the last game of the day we see that onboard graphics simply won't do if you're a gamer. It's nice to see that the budget ECS AMD690GM-M2 motherboard can be converted quite easily into a gaming platform by simply installing a videocard.