Three-screen fun - how we test
GPU comparisons |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Graphics card | Approx. pricing |
GPU clock (MHz) |
Stream processors |
Shader clock (MHz) |
Memory clock (MHz) |
Memory bus (bits) |
Graphics driver | |
| Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 (3,072MB) | £455 | 925 | 2,048 | 925 | 5,500 | 384 | Catalyst 11.12 | |
| Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 (2,048MB) | £255 | 880 | 1,536 | 880 | 5,500 | 256 | Catalyst 11.12 | |
| Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 (1,024MB) | NA | 850 | 1,600 | 850 | 4,800 | 256 | Catalyst 11.12 | |
High-end test bench |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core i5-2500K (3.33GHz, 6MB smart cache, quad-core, LGA1155) | |||||||||||
| Motherboard | Intel Desktop Board DP67BG | |||||||||||
| Memory | 8GB Corsair Vengeance (9-9-9-24 @ 1,600MHz) | |||||||||||
| Power Supply | Corsair AX750W | |||||||||||
| Monitor | ASUS PA236Q x 3 (1,920x,1,080) | |||||||||||
| Disk drive(s) | Crucial RealSSD C300 (256GB) | |||||||||||
| Chassis | Corsair Graphite Series 600T | |||||||||||
| Operating system | Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit, SP1) | |||||||||||
High-end benchmark suite |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aliens vs. Predator | DX11, 1,920x1,080 and 5,760x1,080 resolutions, 4xAA, 16xAF, very high quality | |||||||||||
| Batman: Arkham City | DX11, 1,920x1,080 and 5,760x1,080 resolutions, 8xAA, ultra quality | |||||||||||
| Battlefield 3 | DX11, 1,920x1,080 and 5,760x1,080 resolutions, 4xMSAA, 16xAF, ultra quality | |||||||||||
| Crysis 2 | DX11, 1,920x1,080 and 5,760x1,080 resolutions, 4xAA, ultra quality | |||||||||||
| Just Cause 2 | DX10, 1,920x1,080 and 5,760x1,080 resolutions, 4xAA, 16xAF, very high quality | |||||||||||
| Total War: Shogun 2 | DX11, 1,920x1,080 and 5,760x1,080 resolutions, 4xMSAA, 16xAF, high quality | |||||||||||
Notes
The best of 2009, 2010 and 2011 on show here. We've deliberately not compared against NVIDIA cards because the single-GPU reference models cannot run three screens in tandem.
We've looked upon the HD 7970 favourably in our reference review, but a closer examination of the performance leaps between architectures will reveal whether such bombast praise is truly deserved.
Our in-game image-quality configurations are the highest that can be set in each title; this test focuses on superb eye candy allied to a huge number of pixels.
In the interests of full disclosure, the HD 7970 and HD 6970 are connected to the three screens by DVI, HDMI and mini-Displayport, with the latter two connections using the bundled adapters to HDMI. However, as the HD 5870 features a full-size DisplayPort connector, we don't use the DVI-to-miniDP connector; a straight DisplayPort-to-DisplayPort cable is used.
Also, we could have used a Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 graphics card rather than a standard model - it has 2GB of onboard memory; standard has 1GB - but we really want to compare widely-available GPUs.
AMD says the HD 7970 GPU is made for high-resolution in gaming in mind; let's see how true this statement is.
