Say what you will about 3DMark's accuracy or viability as a synthetic gaming test, the application is still very widely used, and its merits with respect to strict graphics processor testing are evident. However, the latest version of the tool, 3DMark06, came out close to two years ago and lacks DirectX 10 effects being used by games today.Futuremark is therefore working on a new version of the tool, which will drop the yearly naming scheme and go by "3DMark Next." As what might be considered a teaser for the new app, the company has released minimum system specifications for 3DMark Next in the Game-O-Meter section of its YouGamers website. Those minimum specs are as follows: Processor: x86/x64 single core CPU with SSE2 support. Performance similar to Intel Pentium D 3.2GHz or better. Display Card: Fully D3D10/SM4.0 compliant graphics card, 256MB Memory: 1024MB Free Disk Space: 2GB Operating System: Windows Vista (Server editions not supported)And Futuremark lists the following as recommended: Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 or equivalent AMD CPU. Display Card: Fully D3D10/SM4.0 compliant graphics card, 512MB Memory: 2048MB Free Disk Space: 2GB Operating System: Windows Vista (Server editions not supported)As Futuremark announced back in April, 3DMark Next will say goodbye to DirectX 9-class graphics processors and Windows XP, supporting only the latest GeForce 8- and Radeon HD-series GPUs running on Vista. Processor and memory requirements seem to be quite steep, as well, with a Core 2 Duo E6600 or equivalent and 2GB of RAM recommended. Following Futuremark's custom, the upcoming benchmark will probably reflect the graphical capabilities of upcoming games more than those of already-released titles.
vista?lawl pfft forget that yet
