HEXUS.bang4buck
In a rough-and-ready assessment of the cards' bang per buck, we've aggregated the 1,920x1,200 frame-rates for the four 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 four different games, the cards' prices could have been derived from other sources and pricing tends to fluctuate daily.
Consequently, the table and graph 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 | Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 TOXIC, 512MiB | Sapphire Radeon HD 4850, 512MiB | Sapphire Radeon HD 4870, 512MiB | NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+, 512MiB | BFG GeForce 9800 GTX 512MiB | XFX GeForce GTX 260, 896MiB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actual aggregate marks at 1,920x1,200 | 193.03 |
180.99 |
225.68 |
210.08 | 192.13 | 253.89 |
| Aggregate marks, normalised*, at 1,920x1,200 | 137 |
126.51 |
162.71 |
149.23 | 134.17 | 184.99 |
| Current pricing, including VAT | £149 | £125 | £175 | £139 | £129 | £210 |
| HEXUS.bang4buck score at 1,9200x1,200 | 0.92 |
1.01 |
0.93 |
1.07 | 1.04 | 0.88 |
| Acceptable frame rate (av. 60fps) at 1,920x1,200 | No (ET, Crysis, LP) | No (ET, Crysis, LP) | No (Crysis, LP) | No (ET, Crysis, LP) | No (ET, Crysis, LP) | No (Crysis, LP) |
* 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.
As an example, should a card score 120fps we treat it as 90fps as only half the frame rate above 60fps is counted for the HEXUS.bang4buck - this is the formula: (120-((120-60)/2)). Similarly, should it score 30fps, we count it as only 15fps: (30+((30-60)/2)).
The reasoning behind such calculation lies with playable frame rates.
Should card A score 110fps in a benchmark and card B 160, then card B would otherwise receive an extra 50 marks in our HEXUS.bang4buck assessment, even though both cards produce perfectly playable frame rates and anything above 60fps is a bonus and not a necessity for most.
Similarly, without our adjustments, the aggregated HEXUS.bang4buck total for two very different cards would be identical if, in a further benchmark, card A scored a smooth 70fps and card B an unplayable 20fps. Both would win marks totally 180, yet the games-playing experience would be vastly different.
A more realistic (and useful) assessment would say that card A is better because it ran smoothly in both games - and that view would be accurately reflected in our adjusted aggregation, where card A would receive 150 marks (85+65) and card B 100 (100+0).
In effect, we're including a desired average frame rate, in this case 60, and penalising lower performance while giving frame rates higher than 60fps only half as much credit as those up to 60fps. If this doesn't make sense or you have issue with it, please hit the HEXUS community.
Here's the HEXUS.bang4buck graph at 1,920x1,200.
The graph divides the normalised score by the price.
The important bit
Our HEXUS.bang4buck graph's metric for the Sapphire TOXIC card is lower than the reference card. Why? Because the increase in normalised performance, some 8.3 per cent, is gained by having to spend 19 per cent more, but that's not telling the whole story.
The implementation of an aftermarket cooler brings its own benefits that aren't rolled into the graph - namely quieter running and even-greater performance when overclocked. Considering the cost of the cooler, we reckon the price is just about right if you value silence and coolness.
What's good to note is that all cards in this line-up provide decent value for money, and we believe that's mainly because AMD has introduced the Radeon HF 48x0 series at such competitive prices, forcing NVIDIA to reduce its margins and bring GPU-wide pricing into line.
