HEXUS.bang4buck and 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 six 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 six 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.
| Aggregate FPS (1,920x1,080) |
Normalised* FPS (1,920x1,080) |
Current pricing | bang4buck (1,920x1,080) |
Power consumption** | bang4watt*** (1,920x1,080) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1,024MB | 427.50 | 361.15 | £180 | 2.01 | 129 | 2.8 |
| MSI GeForce GTX 560 TF II 1,024MB | 415.10 | 354.1 | £160 | 2.21 | 128 | 2.77 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 560 TOP 1,024MB | 431.10 | 365.35 | £175 | 2.09 | 132 | 2.77 |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1,024MB | 284.1 | 238.95 | £110 | 2.17 | 95 | 2.32 |
| EVGA GeForce GTX 460 1,024MB | 349.50 | 302.55 | £140 | 2.16 | 120 | 2.52 |
| KFA2 GeForce GTX 460 768MB | 317.90 | 272.25 | £125 | 2.18 | 98 | 2.78 |
| Inno3D GeForce GTS 450 | 230.30 | 166.05 | £90 | 1.85 | 71 | 2.34 |
| HIS Radeon HD 6950 2,048MB | 422.3 | 365.45 | £200 | 1.83 | 132 | 2.77 |
| Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 1,024MB | 379.5 | 323.45 | £150 | 2.16 | 119 | 2.72 |
| Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 1,024MB | 332.50 | 284.85 | £130 | 2.19 | 82 | 3.47 |
| Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1,024MB | 403.00 | 336.30 | £150 | 2.24 | 133 | 2.53 |
| AMD Radeon HD 6790 1,024MB | 269.00 | 212.50 | £115 | 1.85 | 90 | 2.36 |
| HIS Radeon HD 5770 1,024MB | 240.40 | 177.30 | £100 | 1.77 | 81 | 2.19 |
| Sapphire Radeon HD 5750 1,024MB | 210.30 | 135.45 | £90 | 1.51 | 56 | 2.42 |
* 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 40W - indicating system power-draw without a card - from the Aliens vs. Predator 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 Just Cause 2.
Analysis
It takes a decent card to aggregate over 400fps across the six games. Pre-overclocked GTX 560s manage it, as does the venerable HD 5870 from AMD. Taking value into account, NVIDIA and AMD's current mid-range cards are closely matched (on our games at least), though AMD has a slight lead in the power-draw stakes.
This analysis suggests that it's difficult to purchase a stinker of £150 card.
