"While 3DMark06 will still furnish you with a final score, measured in '3DMarks', the calculation of this final total is now the result of three subsets of tests - The first measuring Shader Model 2.0 performance, the second measuring Shader Model 3.0 performance, and the final subset measuring CPU performance. CPU performance has not been measured explicitly as part of your final 3DMark score for some time now (Even 3DMark 2001, which is far more of an overall system benchmark these days, has only ended up so due to the fast progress of GPU technology and performance to the point where the CPU becomes a limiting factor in the software's game tests), so this is a sea change from FutureMark to match the actual testing methodology with the aforementioned "Gamer's Benchmark" tagline, while still appealing to professionals and enthusiasts such as myself who often want to take CPU power out of the equation as much as possible and focus on pure graphics performance.

As an offshoot of this, the 'Game tests' of past 3DMarks have now been renamed as 'Graphics tests' - Semantics really, but it helps to hammer home the point of the changes in methodology in this iteration of 3DMark."