HEXUS.bang4buck and HEXUS.bang4watt
Putting all the numbers into perspective, let's take a closer look at overall performance.
In a rough-and-ready assessment of the cards' bang for buck, we've aggregated the 1,920x1,080 frame-rates for seven games, normalised them* and taken account of the single-cards' prices.
But there are more provisos than we'd care to shake a stick at. We could have chosen seven different games, the cards' prices could have been derived from other sources and pricing tends to fluctuate daily, especially for new-release GPUs.
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 | AMD HD 6970 | AMD HD 6950 | Sapphire HD 5870 | HIS HD 5850 | HIS Radeon HD 6850 | HIS Radeon HD 6870 | HIS Radeon HD 5970 | NVIDIA GTX 580 1,536MB | NVIDIA GTX 570 1,280MB | ASUS GTX 480 1,536MB | ASUS GTX 470 1,280MB | KFA2 GTX 460 1,024MB | EVGA GTX 460 768MB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aggregate FPS (1,920x1,080) |
468.4 | 425.7 | 409.4 | 351.1 |
325.6 |
371.3 | 586.9 | 553.2 |
487.4 |
484.9 |
388.1 |
321.6 |
298.4 |
| Normalised* FPS (1,920x1,080) |
428.7 | 386.4 | 369.9 | 300.1 | 265.9 | 324.25 | 503.45 | 480.2 | 431.7 | 432.65 | 334.55 | 251.8 | 222 |
| Current pricing | £299 | £225 | £235 | £180 | £145 | £175 | £425 | £389 | £259 | £320 | £189 | £145 | £125 |
| bang4buck (1,920x1,080) |
1.44 | 1.72 | 1.57 | 1.67 | 1.83 |
1.85 | 1.18 | 1.23 |
1.67 |
1.35 |
1.77 |
1.74 |
1.78 |
| GPU power consumption** | 183 | 137 | 139 | 117 | 97 | 126 | 257 | 252 | 196 | 244 | 204 |
169 | 130 |
| bang4watt*** (1,920x1,080) |
2.34 | 2.82 | 2.66 | 2.56 |
2.74 |
2.57 |
1.96 |
1.91 | 2.2 | 1.77 | 1.64 |
1.49 |
1.78 |
* 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 GPU power consumption is derived from subtracting a flat rate of 100W - indicating system power-draw without a card - from the Call of Duty: Black Ops load figure. While this figure isn't solely indicative of power pulled by the GPU, as the CPU also throttles up, it's a better metric than using peak system-draw alone.
*** the HEXUS.bang4watt score is a crude measurement of how much normalised performance the GPU provides when evaluated against GPU power-draw that's shown in the table: the former is divided by the latter. We're using the peak power-draw numbers obtained by running real-world Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Analysis
Taken over the seven games in our suite, the Radeon HD 6970, evaluated at 1,920x1,080, is about the same speed as a GeForce GTX 570 and GTX 480. A £40 price premium over the GTX 570 translates to a lower HEXUS.bang4buck, though a slightly better in-game power-draw figure means its bang4watt is better. Swings and roundabouts, eh?
The £225 Radeon HD 6950 fares much better. Normalised performance is around 10 per cent lower than an HD 6970's but price is 25 per cent lower. This clearly means that its bang4buck is sweeter and better than the GTX 570's. Do the math at 2,560x1,600 and the Radeon cards do look better in comparison.
AMD's lead in the bang4watt stakes remains intact with the transition between architectures, especially for the HD 6950.
