FutureMark Software beschuldigt AMD ervan dat ze mbv een voor de Athlon geoptimaliseerd .dll'tje de 3DMark99 scores van de Athlon onrechtmatig hebben gemanipuleerd, zo meldt Semiconductor Business News:
FutureMark Software Corp. Ltd. alleges that AMD is now in violation of the trademark surrounding its 3DMark 99 MAX test suite and related licensing agreement. While FutureMark has not taken legal action against AMD, the company said AMD's actions were "inappropriate."According to FutureMark, AMD modified FutureMark's 3DMark 99 MAX test by optimizing the DLL test code for its recently released Athlon chip. AMD's own test results demonstrated that the 600-MHz Athlon outperformed the 600-MHz Pentium III by over 30% in one of the two 3DMark tests. Of the 13 test results accompanying the Athlon press release, the 3DMark figures were among the highest in favor of the Athlon chip.
FutureMark's claims are potentially the latest example of "specmanship," the complicated practice of manipulating the equally convoluted melange of testing applications and benchmarks. Benchmarks are a series of tests performed to reduce a chip's performance in a variety of applications and situations into a single simplified number for marketing purposes. The process is further complicated because the mere choice of tests is somewhat subjective.
