HEXUS.bang4buck
In a rough-and-ready assessment of the cards' bang for buck, we've aggregated the 1,920x1,080 frame-rates for five games, normalised them* and taken account of the cards' prices.
But there are more provisos than we'd care to shake a stick at. We could have chosen five different games, the cards' prices could have been derived from other sources and pricing tends to fluctuate daily.
Consequently, the table below highlight a metric that should only be used as a yardstick for evaluating comparative performance with price factored in. Other architectural benefits are not covered, obviously.
| Graphics cards | ZOTAC GeForce GTX 480 1,536MB | Gigabyte GeForce GTX 470 SOC 1,280MB | ZOTAC GeForce GTX 470 1,280MB | ASUS GeForce GTX 465 1,024MB | ZOTAC GeForce GTX 460 SLI 1,024MB | EVGA GeForce GTX 460 SC SLI 768MB | KFA2 GeForce GTX 460 LTD OC 1,024MB | Inno3D GeForce GTX 460 OC 1,024MB | ZOTAC GeForce GTX 460 1,024MB | EVGA GeForce GTX 460 768MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 XF 1,024MB | HIS Radeon HD 5870 1,024MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 1,024MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 5830 1,024MB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aggregate FPS (1,920x1,080) |
380.1 | 334.10 | 306.47 | 246.59 | 455.1 | 449.8 | 295.8 | 273.4 | 251.3 | 234.16 | 445.42 | 300.27 | 263.97 | 211.02 |
| Normalised* FPS (1,920x1,080) |
316.95 | 277.85 | 252.48 | 188.24 | 371.55 | 366.8 | 243.0 | 221.0 | 196.03 | 174.84 | 372.31 | 263.56 | 223.09 | 156.5 |
| Current pricing | £360 | £300 | £230 | £190 | £360 | £360 | £202 | £185 | £180 | £165 | £440 | £300 | £220 | £160 |
| bang4buck (1,920x1,080) |
0.880 | 0.926 | 1.052 | 0.991 | 1.032 | 1.019 | 1.203 | 1.195 | 1.089 | 1.060 | 0.846 | 0.879 | 1.014 | 0.978 |
| Peak power consumption | 389 | 326 | 346 | 333 | 390 | 375 | 323 | 307 | 289 | 270 | 400 | 297 | 270 | 273 |
| bang4watt** (1,920x1,080) |
0.815 | 0.852 | 0.730 | 0.565 | 0.953 | 0.978 | 0.752 | 0.720 | 0.678 | 0.648 | 0.931 | 0.887 | 0.826 | 0.573 |
* the normalisation refers to taking playable frame rate into account. Should a card benchmark at over 60 frames per second in any one game, the extra fps count as half. Similarly, should a card benchmark lower, say at 40fps, we deduct half the difference from its average frame rate and the desired 60fps, giving it a HEXUS.bang4buck score of 30 marks. The minimum allowable frame rate is 20fps but that scores zero.
** the HEXUS.bang4watt score is a crude measurement of how much normalised performance the GPU provides when evaluated against peak system-wide power-draw that's shown on the previous page: the former is divided by the latter. We're using the peak power-draw numbers obtained by running real-world Crysis Warhead.
Evaluation
It's a minefield of mid-to-high-end graphics cards, and with UK pricing fluctuating on an almost daily basis, it's hard to see where Gigabyte's GeForce GTX 470 SOC fits in.
Is there room for a heavily-overclocked card in between a reference GTX 470 and a reference GTX 480? It's a tough one. Our bang4buck analysis shows that a reference card offers better performance-per-pound, but Gigabyte's low-power characteristics provide the edge in our bang4watt score.
If that sounds inconclusive, we'll further muddy the water by adding that our listed HIS Radeon HD 5870 is priced at £300, but other brands offer the same AMD GPU for around £20 less.
Price, ultimately, is the Super Overclock's one major stumbling block.
