3DMark 06 is around the corner!

Believe it or not, 3DMark 06 is here. I myself never 'mastered' the score in 3DMark05 yet. Anyway, here are among its new features:

• HDR - High Dynamic Range is included!
• CSM - Cascaded Shadow Maps - new type of of depth shadow is implemented.
• Shader Model 3.0 (I thought this was included in 3DMark 05 already?)
• New Test: Game Test 4 called Deep Freeze - it's about an abandoned Antartic base.
  
• New CPU Test - tougher physics algorithms are implemented. Final score will include
  CPU test score, unlike previous 3DMark which exclude it.

Now, regarding the video cards, it seems that my 'enhanced' version of X800 GTO model, which is Sapphire X800 GTO 2 (modded into 16 pipelines for the benchmarking) didn't shine that much. In fact, it lost too many times to 6800 GS, a dedicated 12-pipeline card. Come on ATi, don't make me regret buying your card! And this isn't even an OpenGL test yet.
Just read it over at FiringSquad for the full story. I have something to think about!

edited on 20 January;

1. 6800 GS tops all test in Shader Model 2.0, Game 1 and Game 2 test.
2. X1600 XT tops all test in Shader Model 3.0 and Game 3, followed closely by 6800 GS in the second place.
3. X1600XT and 6800 GS performed very close to each other in Game 4 test.

Where the heck is X800 GTO 16? Far from it.