Ziff-Davis publishing has created a variety of tests to test the speed of PCs and more in particularly the speed of the graphics card. 3D Winbench 98 is a test created to specifically test the speed of the graphic chip's 3D engine.

When 3D Winbench 98 was first created Direct 3D was still a very new standard that was poorly supported. Many 3D graphic chips were not capable of displaying many of the features of Direct 3D and Ziff-Davis correctly decided that before running a benchmark they should test the quality of the image. The logic is this: I does not matter if a chip is capable of displaying a game at 100 frames per second, if that image is devoid most of the 3D features that the user is looking for, then the user may just be better off using DOS.

Before you can run the 3D Winbench's 3D Winmark Test you must run the Quality Test to verify that the features are supported. If a feature is not supported then that feature will be turned off during the test and the score of that particular test will be a 0. Since the final Winmark is based on the sum of the scores, the failure of a feature will negatively effect the 3D Winmark score.

Today, most new chips support the bulk of the 3D features that 3D Winbench 98 tests for, and offer many others that the test does not account for. While this test is certainly not the only test that should be used when considering which card to buy, it is a good place to start.