Three-screen benchmarks - Aliens vs. Predator
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Review: HEXUS.net/qawcl | Where2buy: amazon.co.uk |
The standalone Aliens vs. Predator benchmark uses DX11 features such as hardware tessellation and advanced shadow sampling to draw and animate everyone's favourite xenomorph.
Average framerate
The Radeon pair dominates this title in both one-screen and three-screen setups. Performance is reasonably smooth and lush at 5,760x1,080.
Per-second framerate
Zooming into the per-second framerate results, shown on the graph above, the TOXIC's lead over the GHz Edition Radeon appears to be based on extra frequency alone; there's no obvious, meaningful uplift in performance when equipping the card with a 6GB framebuffer, compared to the 3GB on the GHz model.
Per-frame performance
We can also examine the per-frame performance and then determine just how quickly these three graphics cards spit them out. The premise is to have the GPUs render as many frames as possible in the least amount of time. Frames that take longer than 33ms (or an equivalent 30fps) are noticeable, especially if bunched-up together. Ideally, you want sub-20ms frames (50fps) to be a high proportion of total frames.
We've established the Radeons are better than the GeForce in Aliens vs. Predator. 92.5 per cent of the total AvP frames are rendered in 33ms, or less, by the TOXIC card. This means, in a general way, the game is running at 30fps, or more, most of the time. 10.3 per cent of the TOXIC's frames are rendered in 20ms, or less, meaning the card is producing an equivalent 50fps during those periods. You can see the performance jumps to over 50fps on a few occasions in the second graph. We've chosen 20ms and not 16.7ms (60fps) because these cards cannot produce the 60fps 'gold' standard in any game at 5,760x1,080.
Taking ms framerates and calling them average fps is a dangerous business; the bottom graph only shows the proportion of total frames rendered within a particular parameter - 20ms or 33ms - and should be used as another tool for evaluating performance. The GeForce GTX 680 OC can only produce sub-33ms framerates 21.2 per cent of the time, and it is clearly the loser here.
Does the TOXIC's 6GB framebuffer make a difference? We'd say no, as the increase in performance - and greater number of sub 20ms frames - is more down to the extra frequency; the game doesn't feel smoother than on the 3GB-equipped GHz Edition.
