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Futuremark officially announced today the highly anticipated performance benchmark software 3DMark 11 for DirectX11-compatible graphic cards.

The 3DMark 11 has officially gone gold and it will be available on December 7th, 2010. Last minute issues caused a delay of one week but the end result is a lot more polished benchmark, Futuremark said. Preorders for the Advanced Edition are available now at 3dmark.com .

Futuremark and MSI, the official mainboard and graphic card sponsor of 3DMark 11, also announced together the official launch of the OC competition Phase II. There are two events for this phase, and both events of the second phase will be held during Dec 03 to Dec 31 in 2010. In the first event, contestants are required to use the MSI N480GTX Lightning graphic card to challenge the extreme performance of DirectX11. In the second event, contestants can use any graphic cards using GPU from the Nvidia GeForce GTX400 or Nvidia GeForce GTX500 family to find out the one with highest C/P value (P/P value). The total value of prizes is upwards of US$7,000. Download the benchmark from the official website of 3DMark 11 now to sign up for the 3DMark 11 OC competition.

In the first event of the competition, contestants are required to use the MSI N480GTX Lightning to challenge the extreme performance of DirectX11. The one with the highest score can win a cash prize of US$1,000. Also, contestants beating the previous record of the N480GTX Lightning core speed (1450 MHz) can win an additional cash prize of US$1,000.

In the second event of the competition, contestants can use any graphic cards using GPU from the Nvidia GeForce GTX400 or Nvidia GeForce GTX500 family to achieve the highest performance. This performance will be compared with the suggested retail price of the corresponding graphic card in order to determine the DirectX11-compatible graphic card with the highest C/P value. The event will select the one with the highest score every week. The winner will win an appointed model of graphic card and mainboard from MSI. The one with the highest score throughout the event period (4 weeks) can also win a cash prize of US$1,000.

Additionally, there are many more giveaways during the contest period. Each week, three lucky contestants can win any of the following prizes: MSI mainboard, MSI graphic card, and a full version of 3DMark 11.

MSI N480GTX Lightning OC Competition Rules

- Contestants must use the MSI N480GTX Lightning in the competition. There is no restriction on other hardware/system configuration.
- The benchmarking software item is 3DMark 11 P-Score.
- Contestants must successfully upload the score to the ORB system; otherwise, no score will be considered.
- The contestant with the highest score can win a cash prize of US$1,000.
- Contestants beating the past best record of the N480GTX Lightning core speed (1450 MHz) can win a cash prize of US$1,000.

Best Performance vs Cost Competition

- Contestants can use any graphic cards using GPU from the Nvidia GeForce GTX400 or Nvidia GeForce GTX500 family.
- The benchmarking software item is 3DMark 11 P-Score.
- Contestants must successfully upload the score to the ORB system.
- Score calculation: 3DMark 11 P-Score/Suggested Retail Price of Graphic Card = Final Score. (For example, if a contestant uses a GTX 480 graphic card and gets a score of 24300, and the suggested retail price of the GTX 480 SRP is US$400, his/her final scale is 24300/$400=60.75)
- The suggested retail price is either provided by MSI or determined by Futuremark. Details will be posted on the event website.