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Hardware
- CPU: Intel Core i7 965 at 3.2 GHz (133x24)
- Motherboard: MSI Eclipse (X58)
- Memory: 6 GB Mushkin HP3-12800 1600MHz DDR3 at 1333 MHz (9-9-9-24)
- Chassis: Thermaltake Armor
- Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W
- Hard Drive: 250 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA, w/16 MB cache
- CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U 12
- OS: Vista-64,SP1
Video cards used in the benchmarks include a Sapphire HD 5870 Vapour-X, a VisionTek HD 4870, a Sapphire HD 5770, a BFG GTX 295, and a LeadTek GTX 260 Extreme+ .
Software
For the drivers, all the ATI cards used the Catalyst 9.10 drivers, and all the Nvidia cards used Forceware 190.17 drivers.
We have updated our benchmarks. Here are the new ones:
ARMA II: This battlefield simulator is a very demanding game, on both video cards and soldiers. We uesd the in-game bench, running at 1680x1050, with quality preference set to 'very high', everything else set to 'high', and AA on 'normal'.
Batman: Arkham Asylum: Gotham's Greatest Detective makes for a good benchmark. We used the in-game bench, running at 2560x1600, with the highest quality settings possible. We chose to only test without AA as there has been some controversy that AA is unnecessarily handicapped in this game for some video cards.
FTL_Blunderbuss: This is a demoscene demo by the group Fairlight, which came in second in competition in October 2009. It makes very heavy use of particles, and is a good GPU workout. We used FRAPS to measure the average framerates of a run through the program, running at 1680x1050, with 4xAA, and 'high' detail.
Resident Evil V: Capcom's latest zombie smasher has a great 'Fixed' in-game benchmark. We ran it at top quality at 2560x1600 in DX10 mode, with and without AA .
And here is our older benchmarks still used:
Bioshock: For this benchmark, all of the Detail settings were set to 'High'. All of the graphic option switches were set to 'On', with the exception of the following three settings: Vsync, Windowed mode, and Force Global Lighting. We used FRAPS to measure frame rate performance. The FRAPS run was 138 seconds, triggered from pulling the switch in the sub at game's beginning. The sub's dive involves many big models moving around, which should strain the GPUs and be a good measure of the game's engine.
Crysis: Warhead: Games don't get much more demanding than Crysis. We used the 'Gamer' pre-set level of details, which is the middle level setting out of 5 options. We ran the benchmark on the 'avalanche' map, using the FrameBuffer Crysis benchmarking tool, version 0.29, in DX10 mode.
Devil May Cry 4: This Capcom action game runs well on most systems; but at 'Super High' detail settings, even the fastest systems get taxed. This is built-in benchmark.
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars: We use this id FPS benchmark to test out higher resolutions. We used the highest possible detail settings. We tested the resolutions at 4x AA as well as at 8x AA. 16x AF was also used.
Far Cry 2: This open-world FPS is great looking game that really puts the strain on a gaming rig. We used the built-in benchmarking tool, and the overall 'Very High' quality setting was used.
Furmark: This intensive, synthetic benchmark models a ring of fur. We benched at 1680x1050.
Street Fighter IV: You have probably heard of this famous fighting game. It has 3D graphics, but generally does not require much GPU horsepower to run well. We used Capcom's stand-alone PC benchmarking tool for our tests, and ran everything at its highest possible settings, using 4xAA, and the 'Watercolor' setting.
Unreal Tournament 3: We tested the game using a fly-through of the vehicle capture-the-flag map 'Suspense.'ShangriLa (map) running for 90 seconds. Details were set to 'High', and a AF setting of 16x was used.
World In Conflict: We used the built-in benchmark of the demo version of this game. We ran the benchmark in DX9 rendering mode, with a 'High' level of quality. For the AA testing, we used a setting of 4x, and a setting of 16x for AF.
If you would like any further information about our benchmark settings, feel free to ask us in the forums.
You're correct that using a wider interface costs more, partly because of the number of traces to the GPU. It's also difficult to connect so many traces for a wide interface to the smallest GPUs. AMD/ATI seem happy to stick with 256bit on their high end, and get sufficient bandwidth by using the fastest DDR5 (effectively twice the clock speed of GDDR3).
I'm not talking about the GPU RAM memory, I'm talking about "Interface Memory". It's in the 'bits' size range.
The 5870 has plenty of memory bandwidth for a single GPU, and 1GB handles most games at 2560x1600. Of course, 2GB models will follow in time, as will an X2 (2GPU) version.
That's the next gen boost for you TBH.
The problem with gaming benchmarks, especially comparing old and new gen, is that it doesn't take into account how much of an improvement it would bring, visually, it just goes by pure performance. THe 5870 is no slouch in the FPS category (usually beating everything but the 295), but the improvements, visually, are not taken into account in those tests.
BTW: Is it just me, or shouldn't the NEW generation of cards have more interface memory than the old? the BFG 295 has way more than any of the others? Granted, I don't really know what it's for, but it strikes me that if an older gen card can have so much, why can't a new one? More is better, I'd think, unless it provides no noticable benefit and increases the cost...