{"id":25307,"date":"2011-04-19T06:25:12","date_gmt":"2011-04-19T05:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=25307"},"modified":"2011-04-23T07:06:06","modified_gmt":"2011-04-23T06:06:06","slug":"gtx-520","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/gtx-520\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing AMD&#8217;s &#8220;Turks&#8221; &#8211; HD 6670 and HD 6570"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\n           google_ad_client = \"pub-7021221536180758\"; \/* 468x60, created 11\/11\/09 *\/ google_ad_slot = \"1949837292\"; google_ad_width = 468; google_ad_height = 60;\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/p>\n<p><script src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p>Today AMD is introducing the HD 6670 and the HD 6570, their mainstream video cards. These video cards are budget solutions as the HD 6670 etails for $99 and the 512MB version of the HD 6570 is expected to sell at $79.\u00a0 They come into some very stiff competition from Nvidia&#8217;s GTS 450 which sells for around $80 to $100 for the stock and overclocked versions.\u00a0 Even AMD&#8217;s own HD 5770 is known to sell for close to $100 after rebate.\u00a0 We are here to help you to determine what these new video cards bring as we especially focus on gaming performance.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Radeon6570_Turk_B_3-4_5inch.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25449\" title=\"Radeon6570_Turk_B_3-4_5inch\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Radeon6570_Turk_B_3-4_5inch.jpg?resize=450%2C300\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Radeon6570_Turk_B_3-4_5inch.jpg?resize=450%2C300 450w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Radeon6570_Turk_B_3-4_5inch-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>AMD Graphics and Nvidia are locked in a perpetual battle to one-up each other in what can only be described as a &#8220;graphics war&#8221;.  Nvidia originally had issues with introducing their Fermi DX11 architecture and video cards and AMD beat them to the market by over six months with the first DX11 video cards.  In April of last year, Nvidia launched  their GTX 470 and GTX 480 which were criticized for being  hot-running, power-hungry and loud although they offered somewhat higher performance than AMD&#8217;s HD 5870 and HD 5850.   It appears that AMD actually believed that Fermi was unfixable.<\/p>\n<p>However, a few months later, Nvidia&#8217;s midrange GTX 460 turned out to be a very successful reworking of GF100 Fermi into GF104 that scaled well, ran  cool, had good thermal characteristics, overclocked well and no doubt  ate into AMD&#8217;s then DX11 90% marketshare. To combat the GTX 460, AMD released their HD 6000 series codenamed &#8220;Barts&#8221; with HD 6870 and HD 6850 this past October.  Since these AMD and Nvidia GPUs are relatively complex and expensive to make, it stands to reason that lower-cost similarly-performing GPUs would be introduced to improve their margins and to improve on the performance of the older series.<\/p>\n<p>AMD designed the HD 6970\/6950 (&#8220;Cayman&#8221;) to combat Nvidia&#8217;s brand-new reworked GF110 which debuted since the HD 68&#215;0 launch as thermally tamed and quiet-running GTX 580 and GTX 570 video cards which significantly surpass the HD 58&#215;0 series&#8217; performance.  And of course Nvidia has upped the GTX 460 ante by releasing their GTX 560 TI a couple of months ago.  Finally, just over two weeks ago, Nvidia aimed for AMD&#8217;s bread and butter market, the HD 5770 with their $150 &#8220;soft priced&#8221; GTX 550 Ti.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Exactly two weeks ago, we saw another &#8216;Barts&#8217;, <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/hd-6790\">the HD 6790<\/a>, which is AMD&#8217;s cut-down GPU basically replacing their HD 5830; at least as a &#8220;spiritual successor&#8221; as it fills the same hole in AMD&#8217;s lineup between the HD 5770 and the HD 6850.  This card was designed to completely crush the GTX 550 Ti&#8217;s performance.\u00a0 It succeeded more-or-less performance-wise against the GTX 550 Ti, but failed to convince us pricewise when compared to the similarly priced and faster GTX 460 or even AMD&#8217;s own faster HD 6850.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Of course, AMD points out the advantages of their Eyefinity which now allows more displays to be driven off of a single card &#8211; up to six displays now with a hub adapter &#8211; rather than with Nvidia&#8217;s competing Surround solutions which require two similar video cards running in SLI to power 3 displays.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\">A rose by any other name &#8230;<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Today, AMD Graphics is proud to introduce two new &#8220;mainstream&#8221; cards, the HD 6670 and the HD 6570, still on the same 40 nm process as the 5000 series.   With the release of the HD 6670, evidently AMD wants to tackle light 1920&#215;1080 gaming with a $99 video card.\u00a0 These cards by virtue of their low-power characteristics would make excellent home theater PC (HTPC) video cards.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">The HD 6670<\/span><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/HD6670.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25450\" title=\"HD6670\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/HD6670.jpg?resize=499%2C146\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/HD6670.jpg?resize=499%2C146 499w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/HD6670-300x87.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 499px) 100vw, 499px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>This 6570 appears more suited for light 1680&#215;1050 gaming.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">The HD 6570<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/HD6570.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25451\" title=\"HD6570\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/HD6570.jpg?resize=499%2C154\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/HD6570.jpg?resize=499%2C154 499w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/HD6570-300x92.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 499px) 100vw, 499px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>Below is a chart of AMD&#8217;s video card strategy.\u00a0 And now the new HD 6670\/6570 (&#8220;Turks&#8221;) fits <em>below<\/em> the HD 5700 series and replaces the HD 5670\/5570 respectively:<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Strategy.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-21570\" title=\"Strategy\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Strategy.jpg?resize=450%2C231\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Strategy.jpg?resize=450%2C231 450w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Strategy-300x154.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">&#8220;Turks&#8221;<\/span><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Until recently, we only saw changes to the upper midrange and at the high end.  AMD continued the HD 5700 series until now; unchanged, as they evidently felt unchallenged by Nvidia&#8217;s GTS 450 which we reviewed <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=20306\">here<\/a> against HD 5750. In the above chart, we see the HD 5800 series diverge into 3 streams &#8211; the &#8220;Antilles&#8221;, an &#8220;X2&#8221; video card at the highest end as a successor to the current dual-GPU HD 5970; the &#8220;Cayman&#8221; as HD 6970 and HD 6950 which is using AMD&#8217;s fastest single GPU to succeed to surpass the Cypress HD 5870.\u00a0 And we see Barts represented by the HD 6850\/6870 and recently joined by the severely cut down HD 6790 which we reviewed two weeks ago <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/hd-6790\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Here is the updated product strategy since AMD responded to the newly released GTX 550 Ti which is faster than the HD 5770 and which we reviewed a few weeks ago <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/evgas-gtx-550-ti-free-performance-evaluation\">here<\/a>.  AMD&#8217;s partners have already renamed the OEM HD 5750\/5770 into HD 6750\/6770, so the &#8220;6790&#8221; choice of a name is logical as it positions the new card as shown below.\u00a0 Logically the new HD 6670 and 6570 &#8211; codenamed Turks &#8211; would sit below the HD 5750 performance wise and replace the aging &#8220;Redwood&#8221; HD 5670 and 5570 cards.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ProductPositioning.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25224\" title=\"ProductPositioning\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ProductPositioning.jpg?resize=439%2C222\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ProductPositioning.jpg?resize=439%2C222 915w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ProductPositioning-300x151.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 439px) 100vw, 439px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3>&#8220;Turks&#8221; &#8211; to sit below the HD 5750<\/h3>\n<p>Now we have &#8220;Turks&#8221; GPU-powered video cards which are set below the HD 5750 &#8211; set to replace the aging HD 5570 and 5670 video cards.\u00a0 These new GPUs are designed for the mainstream &#8211; for end users who want low power video cards and light DX11 1080 gaming &#8211; including Eyefinity &#8211; and a solid upgrade over Sandy Bridge DX10 integrated graphics.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: left;\">What&#8217;s new in HD 6670\/6570?<\/h2>\n<p>Since &#8220;seeing is believing&#8221; is still AMD&#8217;s theme for the 6000 series launch and it is all about the 3 &#8220;eyes&#8221;, we shall briefly cover them here:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Eyedefinition<\/li>\n<li>Eyefinity<\/li>\n<li>Eyespeed<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Under Eyedefinition, we see a further subdivision with more efficient tesselation and we also see mention of enhanced architecture for efficiently using GPU compute and for improvement in gaming performance.  We also note improvements in Anisotropic Filtering (AF) and new Anti-Aliasing modes &#8211; morphological AA and EQAA.<\/p>\n<p>Eyespeed refers to GPU compute and to AMD&#8217;s &#8220;open initiative&#8221; approach to (everything and especially to) OpenCL, in contrast to Nvidia&#8217;s use of their own proprietary GPU language, CUDA.  We see AMD partnering with Cyberlink, Arcsoft, Viewdle, Adobe, Microsoft and more companies (some of which are also Nvidia&#8217;s partners) to bring you quality video processing and playback; and of course, UVD 3 accelerated decoding for 3D BluRay playback.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/UVD-3RDGEN.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-21693\" title=\"UVD-3RDGEN\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/UVD-3RDGEN.jpg?resize=494%2C253\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/UVD-3RDGEN.jpg?resize=494%2C253 823w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/UVD-3RDGEN-300x153.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 494px) 100vw, 494px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Morphological Adaptive AA<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>AMD&#8217;s new morphological anti-aliasing technique works as a post process effect. In other words, the GPU finishes rendering each frame as usual &#8211; but before presenting it to the display, it  runs it through another shader pass to perform the filtering. This differs from traditional multi-sample and super-sample AA techniques where the filtering occurs during the rendering of each frame. In fact, this technique can eliminate aliasing for still images, though it\u2019s intended to work better when in motion.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/morphAA1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-21573\" title=\"morphAA\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/morphAA1.jpg?resize=550%2C252\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/morphAA1.jpg?resize=550%2C252 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/morphAA1-300x137.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>The filter works by first detecting high contrast edges with various pixel-sized patterns that are normally associated with aliasing, and assumes they should actually be straight lines that are not aligned to pixel edges. It then estimates the length and angle of the ideal line for each edge, and determines the proportional coverage by the lighter and darker color for each pixel along the edge. Finally it uses this coverage information to blend the colors for each pixel.  All of this is actually being accomplished by the Catalyst drivers through a DirectCompute shader while the Local Data Share is used to keep adjacent pixels in memory for a low overall overhead.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>Anisotropic Filtering (AF)<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">With the HD 5000 series, AMD brought genuine angle-independent filtering to gaming by putting an end to angle-dependent deficiencies. The AMD Radeon HD 6000 series continues to support fully angle invariant anisotropic filtering, and incorporates further improvements in LOD precision relative to the ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series. These image quality benefits come with no additional performance cost and remain enabled at all Texture Filtering Quality settings.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/AF.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-21575\" title=\"AF\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/AF.jpg?resize=540%2C275\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/AF.jpg?resize=540%2C275 1000w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/AF-300x153.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>Architectural improvements<\/h3>\n<p>Like Redwood and Cypress, all Turks, Barts, Cayman and Antilles  GPUs are produced with the 40 nm process.  AMD&#8217;s reference HD 6670 has 8 ROPs and 480 Stream Processors with its core operating at 800 MHz using 1GB of GDDR5  at 4.0GHz (800\/1000 MHz) on a 128-bit bus. There are only 24 Texture units which means it was severely cut down from the Barts GPU so as not to compete with it performance-wise.<\/p>\n<p>The HD 6670&#8217;s maximum load board  power is 66 watts and its idle is 12 watts and it uses only the PCIe slot to provide power to the card.  Here is the specification chart for the HD 6670.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/6670specs.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25447\" title=\"6670specs\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/6670specs.jpg?resize=500%2C355\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/6670specs.jpg?resize=500%2C355 500w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/6670specs-300x213.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>AMD&#8217;s reference HD 6570 also has 8 ROPs and 480 Stream Processors but with its core  operating at 650 MHz and with 512MB of DDR3 (at 900MHz) or 1GB of GDDR5  (at 900MHz to 1000MHz) on a  128-bit bus. There are also only 24 Texture units.\u00a0 The HD 6670&#8217;s maximum load board  power is 44W (60W with DDR5) and its idle is 11 or 12 watts depending on if it uses DDR3 or DDR5.\u00a0 It also uses only the PCIe slot to provide power to the card.  Here is  the specification chart for the HD 6670.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/6570specs.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25448\" title=\"6570specs\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/6570specs.jpg?resize=500%2C293\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/6570specs.jpg?resize=500%2C293 500w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/6570specs-300x175.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>We put all of our Radeon cards through their paces this week with the very latest latest preview drivers 11.4beta.  This driver brought some good performance increases over the 11-2 WHQL drivers.  We used the release driver for the GTX 550 Ti  (267.59) and the latest WHQL 266.58 for the other Nvidia video cards except for the GT 430 and GTS 450 which used the new 270.71 preview drivers from Nvidia which brought some decent increases for DX11 games..<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\">Is AMD&#8217;s HD 6570\/6670 worth the same price as the GTS 450?<\/h3>\n<p>We naturally want to know if the new AMD HD 6570\/6670 card is worth the same approximately $80 to $100 of the stock and overclocked GTS 450 now regularly in the same price range.\u00a0 We also note that you can get a HD 5770 for about $100 after a small mail in rebate.  We will do the testing and then you can answer these questions for yourself together with us in our conclusion.<\/p>\n<h3>Overclocking &amp; CrossFire-X<\/h3>\n<p>The overclock on our HD 6670 can best be described as decent &#8211; from 800\/1000 MHz to 900\/1150MHz.\u00a0 Unfortunately, we only used Catalyst Control Center to set our Radeon overclocks and we really don&#8217;t know what our maximum overclock could be as we pushed the sliders all the way to the right &#8211; CCC&#8217;s maximum &#8211; and benched with complete stability.<\/p>\n<p>The overclock on the HD 6570 was held back by the Catalyst Control Center to only +25MHz on the core &#8211; so we didn&#8217;t bother to test it.\u00a0 We only ran Vantage scores which suggested a small performance gain.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/maxOC6670.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25452\" title=\"maxOC6670\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/maxOC6670.jpg?resize=450%2C423\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/maxOC6670.jpg?resize=450%2C423 450w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/maxOC6670-300x282.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>Neither of these cards are set up to use the CrossFire Interconnect Bridge since they can be paired together in CrossFire-X without it.\u00a0 In fact, we were able to pair our HD 6670 with our HD 6570 for a substantial performance increase in gaming.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">We used our Intel Core i7-920 at 3.8 GHz for this evaluation with turbo on (one core will hit 3.99GHz) so there was zero chance of any CPU bottlenecking.  Read on to see our test bed and the games we used.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: Introduction--><!--nextpage--><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"font-size: large;\"><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\"><strong>Test Configuration<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\"><strong> <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\"><strong>Test Configuration &#8211; Hardware <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Intel Core i7 920-reference 2.66 GHz and overclocked to 3.8 GHz; 21x multiplier for 3.97 GHz, Turbo is on. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Gigabyte <\/span>EX58-UD3R <span style=\"font-size: small;\">(Intel X58 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 2.0 specification; CrossFire\/SLI 16x+16x).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">6 GB OCZ DDR3 PC1800 Kingston RAM (3&#215;2 GB, tri-channel at PC1600 speeds; 2&#215;2 GB supplied by Kingston)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>AMD Radeon HD 6670 (1GB 800\/1000 and overclocked to 950\/1150MHz) supplied by AMD<\/li>\n<li>AMD Radeon HD 6570 (512MB 650\/1000 MHz) supplied by AMD<\/li>\n<li>AMD Radeon HD 6790 (1GB 840\/1050 and overclocked to 940\/1200MHz) supplied by AMD<\/li>\n<li>AMD Radeon HD 5770 (1GB, reference clocks 850\/1200MHz), on loan by a friend<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">GeForce GTS 450 (1GB reference clocks 675\/1800MHz) supplied by Galaxy <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">EVGA GeForce GTX 550 Ti; 1GB at reference clocks (901\/2180MHz) supplied by EVGA <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">GeForce GTX 460, 1.0 GB reference design and clocks (675\/1800 MHz), supplied by Galaxy\/Nvidia<\/span><\/li>\n<li>GeForce GT 430, 1.0 GB reference design and clocks (700\/1600 MHz DDR3), supplied by Nvidia.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Onboard Realtek Audio<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Two identical 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 hard drives configured and set up identically from drive image; one partition for Nvidia GeForce drivers and one for ATI Catalyst drivers<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Thermaltake ToughPower 775 W power supply unit supplied by Thermaltake<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Thermaltake Element G Case supplied by Thermaltake<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Noctua NH-U12P SE2 CPU cooler, supplied by Noctua<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Philips DVD SATA writer<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">HP LP3065 2560&#215;1600 thirty inch LCD<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\">Test Configuration &#8211; Software<\/span><\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">ATi Catalyst 11.4 beta driver for all Radeons; highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver; surface performance optimizations are off; &#8220;use applications settings&#8221; are checked <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">NVIDIA GeForce release candidate 267.59 for GTX 550 Ti; 270.71 Beta for GTS 450 and GT 430 and WHQL 266.58 used for the GTX 460. High Quality<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">DirectX July\/November 2010<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">All games are patched to their latest versions.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">vsync is forced off in the control panel.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Varying AA enabled as noted in games and &#8220;forced&#8221; in Catalyst Control Center for<em> UT3<\/em><em> <\/em>; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied; 16xAF forced in control panel for <em>Crysis.<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">All results show average, minimum and maximum frame rates except as noted.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Windows 7 64, all DX9 titles were run under DX9 render paths, DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths and DX11 titles under DX11 render paths.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\">The Benchmarks<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/strong><strong><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Vantage<\/li>\n<li>3DMark11<\/li>\n<li><em>F.E.A.R.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>X3:Terran Conflict<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Enemy Territory: Quake Wars<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Call of Duty 4<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Unreal Tournament 3<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Batman: Arkham Asylum<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Grand Theft Auto IV<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Serious Sam, Second Encounter HD (2010)<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Wolfenstein<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Left 4 Dead<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Grand Theft Auto IV<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Mafia II<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Call of Juarez<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Crysis<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Warhead <\/em><em> <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Lost Planet<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>World in Conflict <\/em><em> <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Far Cry 2<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Just Cause 2<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>H.A.W.X.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Resident Evil 5<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Alien vs. Predator<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>STALKER, Call of Pripyat<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Dirt 2<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>F1 2010 <\/em><em> <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Metro 2033<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Lost Planet 2<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>H.A.W.X. 2<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Heaven 2<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We have got an interesting project going. Let&#8217;s check our results to see if the new Turks HD 6670\/6570 delivers all that AMD promises for mainstream.  You are going to particularly want to note Turks performance in relation to its competition, the GTS 450 which sit close to its price range, as well as the HD 5770 which is not much more expensive.<!--pagetitle: Test Configuration--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>Vantage<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Vantage is Futuremark\u2019s DX10 test. It is really useful for tracking changes in a<em> single <\/em>system \u2013 especially driver changes. There are two mini-game tests, <em>Jane Nash<\/em> and <em>Calico<\/em> and also two CPU tests, but we are still focusing on the graphics performance. Here is a scene from Vantage\u2019s second mini-game.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/3dmarkvantage-jpg.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"3DMarkVantage\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/3dmarkvantage_thumb-jpg.jpg?resize=244%2C154\" border=\"0\" alt=\"3DMarkVantage\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Let\u2019s go right to the graphs and first check the basic tests with the default benchmark scores:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Vantage-bt.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25372\" title=\"Vantage-bt\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Vantage-bt.jpg?resize=482%2C701\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Vantage-bt.jpg?resize=482%2C701 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Vantage-bt-206x300.jpg 206w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We note the rankings. Unfortunately, scores are completely meaningless when they are presented this way.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Vantage-mg.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25373\" title=\"Vantage-mg\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Vantage-mg.jpg?resize=482%2C699\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Vantage-mg.jpg?resize=482%2C699 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Vantage-mg-206x300.jpg 206w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">For our purposes here, Vantage is a meaningless test although they do attempt to compare one video card&#8217;s performance to another by using two short timedemos.\u00a0  Let&#8217;s move on to the latest Futuremark benchmark, 3DMark11 which is DX11 only.<\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: Vantage--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: left;\">3DMark11<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">3DMark11 is Futuremark&#8217;s brand new DX11-only benchmark. We are keeping track of the overall (for these tests, meaningless) scores and the framerates of the 4 graphics tests (which are more meaningful). First the basic tests results.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/3dmark-bt.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25374\" title=\"3dmark-bt\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/3dmark-bt.jpg?resize=482%2C443\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/3dmark-bt.jpg?resize=482%2C443 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/3dmark-bt-300x275.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We note the rankings. Unfortunately, scores are completely meaningless when they are presented in this way. However, the next set of tests actually measures framerates of four short timedemos that focus on DX11 graphics performance.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/3dmark-mg.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25376\" title=\"3dmark-mg\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/3dmark-mg.jpg?resize=482%2C1001\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/3dmark-mg.jpg?resize=482%2C1001 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/3dmark-mg-144x300.jpg 144w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We see an interesting lineup. Unfortunately for our purposes, 3DMark11 scores are just as meaningless as Vantage in an attempt to compare one video card&#8217;s performance to another &#8211; even in the same system.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Let&#8217;s move on to PC games and to real world situations and we will create our &#8220;snapshot&#8221; of current performance of the new HD 6670 and the HD 6570 to attempt to determine price to performance and how it fits in the current line up and especially how well they do against current now-discounted cards like GT 430\/450\/460.\u00a0 If the synthetics mean anything, GT 430 will be left in the dust.\u00a0 After all, we found the GT 430 an ideal HTPC card just suitable for light gaming in our review of it and a decent upgrade over the GT 230.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><!--pagetitle: 3DMark11--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2><em><strong>F.E.A.R.<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/fear-jpg.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border: 0px;\" title=\"FEAR\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/fear_thumb-jpg.jpg?resize=244%2C184\" border=\"0\" alt=\"FEAR\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> <\/em><em> <\/em><em> <\/em><em>F.E.A.R. \u2013 First Encounter Armed Assault<\/em> is a DX9c game by Monolith Productions that was originally released in October 2005 by Vivendi Universal Production. Later, there were two expansions with the latest, <em>Perseus Mandate<\/em>, released in 2007. Although the game engine is aging, it still has some of the most spectacular effects of any game. <em>F.E.A.R.<\/em> showcases a powerful particle system, complete with sparks and smoke for collisions as well as featuring bullet marks and other effects including \u201csoft shadows\u201d. This is highlighted by the built-in performance test, although it was never updated.<\/p>\n<p>This performance test will tell you how<em> F.E.A.R.<\/em> will run, but both of its expansions are progressively more demanding on your PC graphics and will run slower than the demo. We always run at least two sets of tests with all in-game features at \u2018maximum\u2019. <em>F.E.A.R.<\/em> uses the Jupiter Extended Technology engine from Touchdown Entertainment. We test this game with the most demanding settings. We use fully maxed details with 4xAA\/16xAF; soft shadows \u2018off\u2019, as they do not play well with AA. Let\u2019s start first at 2560&#215;1600:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fear-251.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25377\" title=\"fear-25\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fear-251.jpg?resize=482%2C602\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fear-251.jpg?resize=482%2C602 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fear-251-240x300.jpg 240w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em> <\/em>These two new cards are completely overwhelmed by this game at 2560&#215;1600.\u00a0 It is not so old that F.E.A.R. cannot put a real hurt on entry-level gaming cards.\u00a0 We see the new HD 6790 faster is than the GTX 550 Ti and it completely overwhelms its replacement, the HD 5770.  However, the GTX 460 plays a spoiler. Neither the GTX 450 nor the HD 5770 can play F.E.A.R. at the highest resolution whereas the GTX 560 Ti and GTX 460 are fine.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s look at 1920&#215;100:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fear-192.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25378\" title=\"fear-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fear-192.jpg?resize=482%2C702\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fear-192.jpg?resize=482%2C702 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fear-192-205x300.jpg 205w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>At 1920&#215;1200 resolution there is a lot of difference in practically playing <em>F.E.A.R.<\/em> between the fastest and the slowest video configurations as the minimums determine smooth gameplay.  However, in this old DX9 game, the GTX 550 Ti is slightly faster than the HD 6790 and it takes at least a HD 5770 or a GTS 450 to give satisfactory game play.\u00a0 The two new Radeons would have to not only drop resolution, they would also have to drop details or AA although the overclocked HD 6670 comes close.<\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: F.E.A.R.--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2><strong><em>X3: Terran Conflict<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/x3tc-jpg.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"X3TC\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/x3tc_thumb-jpg.jpg?resize=244%2C154\" border=\"0\" alt=\"X3TC\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> <\/em><em> <\/em><em> <\/em><em>X3:Terran Conflict<\/em><em> (X3:TC) <\/em>is another beautiful stand-alone benchmark that runs multiple tests and will really strain a lot of older video cards. <em>X3:TC <\/em>is a space trading and combat simulator from Egosoft and is the most recent of their X-series of computer games. <em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>X3:TC<\/em> is a standalone expansion of <em>X3: Reunion<\/em>, based in the same universe and on the same engine. It complements the story of previous games in the X-Universe and especially continues the events after the end of <em>X3: Reunion<\/em>. Compared to<em> Reunion, Terran Conflict<\/em> features a larger universe, more ships, and of course, new missions. The X-Universe is huge. The Terran faction was added with their own set of technology including powerful ships and stations. Many new weapons systems were developed for the expansion and it has generally received good reviews. It has a rather steep learning curve.<\/p>\n<p>First we note the results at 1920\u00d71200 with completely maxed out settings plus 8xAA:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/x3tc-193.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25379\" title=\"x3tc-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/x3tc-193.jpg?resize=482%2C901\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/x3tc-193.jpg?resize=482%2C901 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/x3tc-193-160x300.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The minimums are the same but the GTS 450 is faster than the new Radeons while the HD 6790 edges the GTX 550 Ti which in turn beats the HD 5770 which is solidly faster than the GTX 450. Of course, GT 430 is dead last and choking on space dust although the minimums are similar.\u00a0 This time we drop the resolution to 1680&#215;1050 and also drop our AA to 4x.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/x3tc-16.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25380\" title=\"x3tc-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/x3tc-16.jpg?resize=482%2C600\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/x3tc-16.jpg?resize=482%2C600 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/x3tc-16-241x300.jpg 241w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There is quite a performance difference dropping from 8x to 4xAA.\u00a0 All of our video cards now run close to each other in a fairly tight grouping.  The GTS 450 beats both new Radeons and although the HD 6670 overclocks well, it still cannot catch up.\u00a0 The GTX 550 Ti does its job and beats its rival the HD 6790 until that card is overclocked. However, all of our video cards perform well and all of them experience similar minimum framerates and a similar playing experience. We also note no change in the minimums by overclocking although the HD 6670 scales in the averages as expected. <!--pagetitle: X3 - Terran Conflict--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2><em><strong>Enemy Territory: <strong>Quake Wars <\/strong><\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/etqw_image-jpg.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border: 0px;\" title=\"etqw_image\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/etqw_image_thumb-jpg.jpg?resize=244%2C154\" border=\"0\" alt=\"etqw_image\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a> <em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Enemy Territory: Quake Wars <\/em>is an objective-driven, class-based first person shooter set in the Quake universe. <em>Quake Wars<\/em> pits the combined human armies of the Global Defense Force against the technologically superior Strogg, an alien race who has come to earth to use humans for spare parts and food. It allows you to play a part, probably best as an online multi-player experience, in the battles waged around the world in mankind\u2019s desperate war to survive. <em> <\/em><em> <\/em><em> <\/em><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Quake Wars<\/em> is an OpenGL game based on id\u2019s Doom3 game engine with the addition of their MegaTexture technology. It also supports some of the latest 3D effects seen in today\u2019s games, including soft particles, although it is somewhat dated and less demanding on video cards than many DX10 games. id\u2019s MegaTexture technology is designed to provide very large maps without having to reuse the same textures over and over again.<\/p>\n<p>For our benchmark we chose the flyby, <em>Salvage Demo<\/em>. It is one of the most graphically demanding of all of the flybys and it is very repeatable and reliable in its results. It is fairly close to what you will experience in-game. All of our settings are set to \u2018maximum\u2019 and we also apply 4xAA or 8xAA plus 16xAF in game. We used to test at 2560&#215;1600 and 1920&#215;1200 resolutions, but they are far too demanding for our target new cards so we will explore 1680&#215;1050 &#8211; all details are maxed and we first start with 8xAA:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/etqw-16-8.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25381\" title=\"etqw-16-8\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/etqw-16-8.jpg?resize=482%2C703\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/etqw-16-8.jpg?resize=482%2C703 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/etqw-16-8-205x300.jpg 205w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">This game was not playable at 1680&#215;1050 resolution with this level of AA on our HD 6670 nor GTS 450 although the GeForce is faster even when the Radeon is overclocked.   So let&#8217;s drop the anti-aliasing from 8x to 2x while we continue to test at 1680&#215;1050 resolution.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/etqw-16-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25442\" title=\"etqw-16-2\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/etqw-16-2.jpg?resize=482%2C622\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/etqw-16-2.jpg?resize=482%2C622 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/etqw-16-2-232x300.jpg 232w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>All the cards run this benchmark satisfactorily except for the GT 230.\u00a0 The GTS 450 is still a stronger performer than the overclocked HD 6670.\u00a0 There are definite issues with the HD 5770 and this driver with some of the OpenGL games that we tested.  Fortunately this does not seem to affect the 6000 series which we tested later on just before this review was published nor does our HD 5770 have issues with Catalyst 11-2 WHQL driver.<\/p>\n<p>At the higher levels of AA, the HD 6790 edges the GTX 550 Ti which are in turn way faster than the GTS 450 and we could get very playable framerates at the target 1680&#215;1050 with maxed-out AA or at 1920&#215;1200 with less AA.\u00a0   Not so with the new Radeons which must content themselves with modest levels of AA.<!--pagetitle: ET:QW--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2>Wolfenstein<\/h2>\n<p><em>Wolfenstein<\/em> is a science fiction first-person shooter video game mostly co-developed by Raven and id Software and published by Activision. It is the sequel to <em>Return to Castle Wolfenstein<\/em>, and uses the id Tech 4 engine. The game was released in 2009. <a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Wolf2MP-2011-02-25-11-19-45.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-24248\" title=\"Wolf2MP-2011-02-25-11-19-45\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Wolf2MP-2011-02-25-11-19-45.jpg?resize=300%2C187\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Wolf2MP-2011-02-25-11-19-45.jpg?resize=300%2C187 300w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Wolf2MP-2011-02-25-11-19-45-1024x640.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Wolf2MP-2011-02-25-11-19-45.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a> Our timedemo benchmark was created by ABT\u2019s own Senior Editor, BFG10K.\u00a0 First we test at 1920&#215;1200 with completely maxed out in-game settings.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/wolf-193.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25383\" title=\"wolf-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/wolf-193.jpg?resize=482%2C360\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/wolf-193.jpg?resize=482%2C360 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/wolf-193-300x224.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This resolution is too demanding for the new HD 6670 as well as the HD 6790 and GTX 550 Ti although they beat up on the GTS 450 which produces a slideshow at the same settings.  The HD 5770 is a no show with the OpenGL games we tested and with the 11.4 beta driver.  Now we test at 1680&#215;1050 with maxed-out settings.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/wolf-161.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25384\" title=\"wolf-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/wolf-161.jpg?resize=482%2C401\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/wolf-161.jpg?resize=482%2C401 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/wolf-161-300x249.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The <em>Wolfenstein<\/em> game is too demanding for our new cards until the HD 6670 is overclocked.\u00a0 Then its performance is almost sufficient to match the GTX 560 Ti.  We also note good improvement in framerates by increasing the HD 6670&#8217;s clockspeed and memory clocks.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><!--pagetitle: Wolfenstein--><!--nextpage--><strong><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare<\/span><\/span><br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/strong><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-4367\" href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/%e2%80%9cquad-core-vs-dual-core%e2%80%9d-cpu-scaling-with-crossfire-q9550s-vs-e8600-part-3\/iw3mpcod4\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-4367 aligncenter\" title=\"iw3mpcod4\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/iw3mpcod4.jpg?resize=150%2C150\" alt=\"iw3mpcod4\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (CoD4)<\/em> is a first person shooter running on a custom engine. It has nice graphics but the engine is somewhat dated compared to others and it runs well on modern PCs. It is the first <em>CoD<\/em> installment to take place in a modern setting instead of in World War II.<\/p>\n<p>It differs from the previous <em>Call of Duty<\/em> games by having a more film-like plot that uses intermixed story lines from two perspectives; that of a USMC sergeant and a British SAS sergeant. There is also a variety of short missions where players control other characters in flashback sequences to advance the story. <em>Call of Duty 4\u2019s<\/em> move to modern warfare introduced a variety of modern conventional weapons and technologies including plastic explosives.<\/p>\n<p>There are currently about 20 multiplayer maps in <em>CoD4<\/em>. It is still very popular. <em>CoD Modern Warfare <strong>2<\/strong><\/em> was also released with updated visuals but it is also not very demanding on graphics cards.\u00a0 Our timedemo benchmark was created by ABT\u2019s own Senior Editor, BFG10K.\u00a0<span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Here is <em>CoD4,<\/em> first at 1920&#215;1200 resolution with all in-game settings completely maxed out plus 4xAA:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/cod4-192.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25385\" title=\"cod4-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/cod4-192.jpg?resize=482%2C802\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/cod4-192.jpg?resize=482%2C802 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/cod4-192-180x300.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s takes the overclocked HD 6670 to beat the GTS 450.\u00a0 Let&#8217;s next test at 1680&#215;1050.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/cod4-16.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25386\" title=\"cod4-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/cod4-16.jpg?resize=482%2C603\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/cod4-16.jpg?resize=482%2C603 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/cod4-16-239x300.jpg 239w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\">We see that a popular multiplayer game is very playable even on midrange graphics cards and it plays very smoothly with this generation&#8217;s entry-level gaming video cards except for the GT 430. <\/span>The HD 6790 is faster than the GTX 550 Ti and overclocked it is slightly faster than the GTX 460.\u00a0 The HD 6670 edges the stock GTS 450 when it is overclocked as it scales nicely with increasing clockspeeds. <!--pagetitle: CoD4--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h3>Unreal Tournament 3 (UT3)<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/ut3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"UT3\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/ut3.jpg?resize=150%2C150\" alt=\"UT3\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Unreal Tournament 3 (UT3)<\/em> is the fourth game in the Unreal Tournament series. <em>UT3<\/em> is a first-person shooter and online multiplayer video game by Epic Games. <em>Unreal Tournament 3 <\/em>provides a good balance between image quality and performance, rendering complex scenes well even on lower-end PCs. Of course, on high-end graphics cards you can really turn up the detail.  UT3 is primarily an online multiplayer title offering several game modes and it also includes an offline single-player game with a campaign. For our tests, we used the very latest game patch for <em>Unreal Tournament 3<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The game doesn\u2019t have a built-in benchmarking tool, so we used FRAPS and did a fly-by of a chosen level. Here we note that performance numbers reported are a bit higher than compared to in-game. The map we use is called \u201cContainment\u201d and it is one of the most demanding of the fly-bys. Our tests were run at resolutions of 2560 x 1600 and 1920 x 1200 with UT3\u2019s in-game graphics options set to their maximum values.<\/p>\n<p>One drawback of the way the UT3 engine is designed is that there is no support for anti-aliasing built in. We forced 4xAA for 2560&#215;1600 and 8xAA for 1920&#215;1200 in each vendor\u2019s control panel; 8xQ for Nvidia to match AMD Graphics&#8217; 8xMSAA settings. We record a demo in the game and a set number of frames are saved in a file for playback. When playing back the demo, the game engine then renders the frames as quickly as possible, which is why you will often see it playing it back more quickly than you would actually play the game.<\/p>\n<p>Here is Containment Demo, first at 1920&#215;1200 with 8xAA forced in each vendor&#8217;s control panel:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ut3-194.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25387\" title=\"ut3-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ut3-194.jpg?resize=482%2C503\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ut3-194.jpg?resize=482%2C503 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ut3-194-287x300.jpg 287w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>At this resolution and maxed out AA, the GTS 450 is\u00a0 much faster than the HD 6670.  Now we test at 1680 x 1080 and with 4xAA forced.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ut3-16.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25388\" title=\"ut3-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ut3-16.jpg?resize=482%2C704\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ut3-16.jpg?resize=482%2C704 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ut3-16-205x300.jpg 205w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em> <\/em><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p>There is absolutely no problem playing this game fully maxed-out with any of our graphics configurations  except for the GT 430.  The HD 6670 nearly catches the GTS 450 while the HD 6790 beats the GTX 550 Ti and HD 5770 at its target resolution.  The GTX 460 stands out for its price.  The HD 5770 just edges the overclocked GTX 550Ti in the averages at 1920&#215;1200 although the GeForce beats the Radeon in the minimums. <!--pagetitle: UnrealTournament3--><em><!--nextpage--><\/em><strong><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"font-size: large;\">Batman: Arkham Asylum (Game of the Year Edition)<\/span><\/span><\/strong><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/batmanaa_25x16.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-17938\" title=\"batmanAA_25x16\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/batmanaa_25x16.jpg?resize=300%2C187\" alt=\"batmanAA_25x16\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/batmanaa_25x16.jpg?resize=300%2C187 300w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/batmanaa_25x16-1024x640.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/strong><\/em> <em>Batman: Arkham Asylum<\/em> is an action-adventure\/stealth video game based on DC Comics&#8217; Batman. Arkham Asylum is based directly on the long-running comic book&#8217;s Dark Knight character. The Joker devised an elaborate plot from inside Arkham Asylum that Batman is personally forced to put a stop to. The game&#8217;s primary characters are superbly voiced.<\/p>\n<p>The game is played as an over-the-shoulder, third-person perspective action-adventure game with a primary focus on Batman&#8217;s combat abilities, stealth, detective skills and complete with an arsenal of gadgets that can be used in both combat and as exploring in &#8220;detective mode&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><em> <\/em><em>Batman: Arkham Asylum <\/em>uses a highly modified version of the Unreal Engine 3. It does not support AA natively but must be added in and supported by the game&#8217;s developer. Unfortunately we cannot compare <em>Batman: Arkham Asylum<\/em> using our GeForce <em>exactly<\/em> against the Radeon with PhysX on; so all of our testing is with it off. We are using the <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=20560\">Game of the Year Edition <\/a>of <em>Batman: Arkham Asylum<\/em> which supports in-game AA settings for both Radeon and GeForce cards.<\/p>\n<p>We begin testing at 1920&#215;1200 with details maxed and with 8xAA applied in the game&#8217;s setting control panel (8xQ for Nvidia).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/batman-193.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25389\" title=\"batman-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/batman-193.jpg?resize=482%2C706\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/batman-193.jpg?resize=482%2C706 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/batman-193-204x300.jpg 204w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> All of our tested cards do well and both of the new Radeons beat the GTS 450.\u00a0 1920&#215;1200 can only be faster.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/batman-16.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25390\" title=\"batman-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/batman-16.jpg?resize=482%2C604\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/batman-16.jpg?resize=482%2C604 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/batman-16-239x300.jpg 239w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">All of our cards can play Batman at 1920&#215;1200 with 8xAA except for the GT 430. <\/span> The HD 6670 trades blows with the GTS 450 depending on the settings while the HD 5770 is faster than the GTX 550 Ti.<\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><!--pagetitle: Batman GotY--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\"><em><strong>Left 4 Dead<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>Left 4 Dead<\/em> <em>(L4D) <\/em>is a 2008 co-op first-person shooter that was developed by Turtle Rock Studios and purchased by Valve Corporation during its development. <em>Left 4 Dead<\/em> uses Valve&#8217;s proprietary Source engine<em> <\/em>. <em>L4D<\/em> is set in the aftermath of a worldwide pandemic which pits its four protagonists against hordes of the infected zombies.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">There are four game modes: a single-player mode in which your allies are controlled by AI; a four-player, co-op campaign mode; an eight-player online versus mode; and a four-player survival mode. In all modes, an artificial intelligence (AI), dubbed the &#8220;Director&#8221;, controls pacing and spawns, to create a more dynamic experience with increased replay value. It is best as a multiplayer game with humans.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/left4dead.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-24244\" title=\"left4dead\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/left4dead.jpg?resize=300%2C187\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/left4dead.jpg?resize=300%2C187 300w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/left4dead-1024x640.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>There is no built-in benchmark, so we created our own custom time demo which is very repeatable. The game is updated regularly by Steam and we chose the highest detail settings and 8xAA.  First we test at 1920&#215;1200 resolution:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/l4d-196.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25391\" title=\"l4d-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/l4d-196.jpg?resize=482%2C403\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/l4d-196.jpg?resize=482%2C403 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/l4d-196-300x250.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">It takes the overclocked HD 6670 to beat the GTS 450.\u00a0 On to our next chart at 1680\u00d71050:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/l4d-16.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25392\" title=\"l4d-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/l4d-16.jpg?resize=482%2C362\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/l4d-16.jpg?resize=482%2C362 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/l4d-16-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>Left 4 Dead<\/em> leaves the GT 430 behind.\u00a0 We see the HD 6670 being mauled by the GTS 450 and the overclock does not make up for it.<\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: Left 4 Dead--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Grand Theft Auto IV<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><em> <\/em><em>Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV)<\/em> is a sandbox-style action-adventure video game released by Rockstar in late 2008. It is the sixth game in the Grand Theft Auto series. Two episodic expansion packs have since been released since then as late as April of this year.<\/p>\n<p>The game is set in Liberty City, a fictional city based heavily on modern day New York City. It follows Niko Bellic, a war veteran from Eastern Europe. He comes to the United States in search of the American Dream and enters a world of organized crime, gangs and corruption. <em>GTA IV<\/em> is mostly composed of elements from driving games and third-person shooters which features free-roaming gameplay. It features an online multiplayer mode, the first of the GTA series to do so. <a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/GTAIV2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-24247\" title=\"GTAIV\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/GTAIV2.jpg?resize=300%2C187\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/GTAIV2.jpg?resize=300%2C187 300w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/GTAIV2-1024x640.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a> Here are the settings that we used. The HD 6570 nearly ran out of resources at 1680&#215;1050 and we had to move the texture setting down from high to medium.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><em><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/GTAIV-2Settings.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-21704\" title=\"GTAIV-2Settings\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/GTAIV-2Settings.jpg?resize=560%2C350\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/GTAIV-2Settings.jpg?resize=560%2C350 800w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/GTAIV-2Settings-300x187.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<p>First we tested at 1920&#215;1200 resolution.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/gta-19.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25393\" title=\"gta-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/gta-19.jpg?resize=482%2C402\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/gta-19.jpg?resize=482%2C402 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/gta-19-300x250.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now we test at 1920&#215;1200.\u00a0 We had to move the texture settings to medium to even benchmark the HD 6570.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/gta-16.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25394\" title=\"gta-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/gta-16.jpg?resize=482%2C343\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/gta-16.jpg?resize=482%2C343 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/gta-16-300x213.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This benchmark appears to be at the very least, highly CPU-limited at 1920&#215;1200.  In <em>GTA-IV<\/em>, the GTS 450 wins over the HD 6670.<\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: Grand Theft Auto IV--><!--nextpage--><strong><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Serious Sam Second Encounter HD (2010)<\/span><\/span><\/strong> <span style=\"font-size: small;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/SamHD_SS.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-20448\" title=\"SamHD_SS\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/SamHD_SS.jpg?resize=300%2C187\" alt=\"SamHD_SS\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/SamHD_SS.jpg?resize=300%2C187 300w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/SamHD_SS-1024x640.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/span> Serious Sam is the title of a series of first-person shooters created by the Croatian development team Croteam. It follows the adventures of its hero Sam &#8220;Serious&#8221; Stone and his fight against the forces of the extraterrestrial overlord Mental who seeks to destroy humanity. Its gameplay is a throwback to early first-person shooters like Quake and Doom with the twist of being set in wide-open environments with large groups of enemies attacking at any time, and there are many hidden areas and treasures to find and puzzles to solve.<\/p>\n<p>Serious Sam features cooperative gameplay and allows for split screen action supporting up to 4 players. <em> <\/em><em>Serious Sam: The Second Encounter<\/em> was remade as &#8220;HD&#8221; using Serious Engine 3. It was released on April, 2010 for PC. Besides updated visuals, new game modes including &#8220;Co-op Tournament&#8221; and &#8220;Survival&#8221; for single player, were introduced in this remake.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\">We use the basic 3 &#8220;ultra&#8221; presets for benching <\/span><em>Serious Sam: The Second Encounter HD.<\/em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> There is possible further fine-tuning which will make the game even more demanding, but we chose the &#8220;ultra&#8221; presets with only one higher GPU setting, to allow for testing beyond 1920&#215;1080. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">We test first at 1920&#215;1200<\/span> <span style=\"font-size: small;\">resolution:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ss-192.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25395\" title=\"ss-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ss-192.jpg?resize=482%2C700\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ss-192.jpg?resize=482%2C700 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ss-192-206x300.jpg 206w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Our settings are way too high for our subject cards so we test at 1680&#215;105<\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\">0 with the same ultra presets:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ss-16.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25396\" title=\"ss-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ss-16.jpg?resize=482%2C505\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ss-16.jpg?resize=482%2C505 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ss-16-286x300.jpg 286w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Serious Sam: The Second Encounter HD<\/em> <span style=\"font-size: small;\">on the Serious 3 engine is quite demanding . <\/span>The GTS 450 is solidly faster than the HD 6670<span style=\"font-size: small;\">. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: Serious Sam (2010)--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong><strong><span style=\"font-size: large;\">Mafia II<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong><strong> <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/mafiaScreenCS.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-20445\" title=\"mafiaScreenCS\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/mafiaScreenCS.jpg?resize=300%2C187\" alt=\"mafiaScreenCS\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/mafiaScreenCS.jpg?resize=300%2C187 300w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/mafiaScreenCS-1024x640.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/mafiaScreenCS.jpg 1680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/strong><\/ul>\n<p><em>Mafia II<\/em> is a third-person action-adventure video game which is the sequel to <em>Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven<\/em>. It is developed by 2K Czech and is published by 2K Games and was released last year. Mafia II is set from 1943 to 1951 in Empire Bay which is a fictional city based mostly on San Francisco and New York City along with some influences from Chicago and also Detroit. <em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Mafia II<\/em> is a gritty drama which chronicles the rise of World War II veteran Vito Scaletta who joins the Falcone Crime Family and becomes a \u2018made\u2019 man. There are 15 chapters in the game and over two hours of game engine generated cutscenes. <em> <\/em><em>Mafia II<\/em> makes extensive use of Nvidia\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nvidia.com\/object\/physx_new.html\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.nvidia.com\/object\/physx_new.html', 'PhysX']);\" >PhysX<\/a> whose full effects are seen smoothly only by playing on a PhysX-enabled GeForce and preferably with a second video card dedicated to it.<\/p>\n<p>For this article, we used the full retail game with <em>Mafia II&#8217;s<\/em> built-in benchmark with the highest settings for 1920&#215;1200 and 1680&#215;1050 &#8211; without PhysX &#8211; and this time we will reserve comment until after presenting the charts.\u00a0 First we test at 1920&#215;1200.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/mafia-19.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25397\" title=\"mafia-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/mafia-19.jpg?resize=482%2C361\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/mafia-19.jpg?resize=482%2C361 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/mafia-19-300x224.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Now at 1680&#215;1050.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/mafia-16.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25398\" title=\"mafia-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/mafia-16.jpg?resize=482%2C322\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/mafia-16.jpg?resize=482%2C322 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/mafia-16-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">The HD 6670 is slower than the GTS 450<\/span>.<span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span> This covers our DX9 games. Let&#8217;s move on to DX10 and DX11 games to see if anything changes. <!--pagetitle: Mafia II--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: left;\">Call of Juarez<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/coj_dx10-jpg.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"CoJ_DX10\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/coj_dx10_thumb-jpg.jpg?resize=244%2C154\" border=\"0\" alt=\"CoJ_DX10\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a> <em> <\/em><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Call of Juarez<\/em> is one of the very earliest DX10 games. It is loosely based on Spaghetti Westerns that became popular in the early 1970s. <em>Call of Juarez<\/em> features its Chrome Engine using Shader Model 4 with DirectX 10.  Our benchmark is built into <em>Call of Juarez<\/em>. It runs a simple flyby of a level that is created to showcase its DX10 effects. It offers good repeatability and it is a good stress test for DX10 features in graphics cards, although it is not quite the same as actual gameplay because the game logic and AI are stripped out of this demo.<\/p>\n<p>Performing <em>Call of Juarez <\/em>benchmark is easy. You are presented with a simple menu to choose resolution, anti-aliasing, and two choices of shadow quality options. We set the shadow quality on \u201chigh\u201d and the shadow map resolution to the maximum, 2048\u00d72048. At the end of the run, the demo presents you with the minimum, maximum, and average frame rate, along with the option to quit or run the benchmark again. We always ran the benchmark at least a second time and recorded that generally higher score.<\/p>\n<p>Here are <em>Call of Juarez<\/em> DX10 benchmark results, first at 1920\u00d71200:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/coJ-19.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25399\" title=\"coJ-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/coJ-19.jpg?resize=482%2C802\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/coJ-19.jpg?resize=482%2C802 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/coJ-19-180x300.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now we test at 1680&#215;1050:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/coJ-16.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25400\" title=\"coJ-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/coJ-16.jpg?resize=482%2C704\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/coJ-16.jpg?resize=482%2C704 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/coJ-16-205x300.jpg 205w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The GT 430 is dead last and the HD 6670 is slower than the GTS 450.\u00a0 Here the HD 6790 beats the GTX 550 Ti which in turn leads over the HD 5770.  The GTX 460 is solidly faster than any of the new cards.<\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: Call of Juarez--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2>Lost Planet<\/h2>\n<h2><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/lostplanet-jpg.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 0pt none; display: inline;\" title=\"LostPlanet\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/lostplanet_thumb-jpg.jpg?w=720\" border=\"0\" alt=\"LostPlanet\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/h2>\n<p><em>Lost Planet: Extreme Condition<\/em> is a Capcom port of an Xbox 360 game. It takes place on the icy planet of E.D.N. III which is filled with monsters, pirates, big guns, and huge bosses. This frozen world highlights high dynamic range lighting (HDR) as the snow-white environment reflects blinding sunlight as DX10 particle systems toss snow and ice all around.<\/p>\n<p>The game looks great in both DirectX 9 and 10 and there isn\u2019t really much of a difference between the two versions except perhaps shadows. Unfortunately, the DX10 version doesn\u2019t look that much better when you\u2019re actually playing the game and it still runs slower than the DX9 version.<\/p>\n<p>We use the in-game performance test from the retail copy of <em>Lost Planet<\/em> and updated through Steam to the latest version for our runs. This run isn\u2019t completely scripted as the creatures act a little differently each time you run it, requiring multiple runs. <em>Lost Planet\u2019s <\/em>Snow and Cave demos are run continuously by the performance test and blend into each other.<\/p>\n<p>Here are our benchmark results with the more demanding benchmark, Snow. All settings are fully maxed out in-game including 2x or 4xAA\/16xAF. Let&#8217;s start with 1920&#215;1200 resolution with 2xAA.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp-192.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25401\" title=\"lp-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp-192.jpg?resize=482%2C706\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp-192.jpg?resize=482%2C706 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp-192-204x300.jpg 204w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The resolution is set too high for our target cards although the GTS 450 sits in-between the HD 6570 and the HD 6670.  Next we test at 1680&#215;1050 and with 4xAA:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp-162.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25402\" title=\"lp-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp-162.jpg?resize=482%2C706\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp-162.jpg?resize=482%2C706 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp-162-204x300.jpg 204w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This time, the stock HD 6790 comes pretty close to GTX 460 performance and the GTS 450 again sits in between the HD 6570 and the HD 6670.<\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: Lost Planet--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: left;\">CRYSIS<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/crysis64_1-jpg.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"crysis64_1\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/crysis64_1_thumb-jpg.jpg?resize=244%2C154\" border=\"0\" alt=\"crysis64_1\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Next we move on to <em>Crysis<\/em>, a science fiction first person shooter by Crytek. It remains one of the most demanding games for any PC and it is also still one of the most beautiful games released to date. <em>Crysis<\/em> is based in a fictional near-future where an alien spacecraft is discovered buried on an island near the coast of Korea. The single-player campaign has you assume the role of USA Delta Force, \u2018Nomad\u2019 who is armed with futuristic weapons and equipment. <em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Crysis<\/em> uses DirectX10 for graphics rendering. A standalone but related game, <em>Crysis Warhea<\/em>d was released the following year. CryEngine2 is the game engine used to power <em>Crysis<\/em> and <em>Warhead<\/em> and it is an extended version of the CryEngine that also powers <em>Far Cry<\/em>. As well as supporting Shader Model 2.0, 3.0, and DirectX10\u2019s 4.0, CryEngine2 is also multi-threaded to take advantage of dual core SMP-aware systems and Crytek has developed their own proprietary physics system, called CryPhysics.<\/p>\n<p>It is noted that actually playing this game is a bit slower than the demo implies. All of our settings are set to the in-game maximum&#8217;s &#8220;very high&#8221; including 2xAA for 1680&#215;1050 and we force 16xAF in the control panels. Here is <em>Crysis\u2019<\/em> Island Demo benchmark, only at 1680&#215;1050.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/crysis-162.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25405\" title=\"crysis-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/crysis-162.jpg?resize=482%2C700\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/crysis-162.jpg?resize=482%2C700 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/crysis-162-206x300.jpg 206w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>All of our target cards are simply too slow and the GTS 450 is faster than the new Radeons.\u00a0 The HD 6790 is slower than the GTX 460 although it demolishes it competition, the GTX 550 Ti.  In fact, the GTX 550 Ti is behind the HD 5770.  We will  make sure to test further in <em>Warhead<\/em>, a better optimized game.<\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: Crysis--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2>Crysis Warhead<\/h2>\n<p><em>Crysis Warhead<\/em> is a science fiction first-person shooter developed by the Hungarian studio Crytek and published by Electronic Arts. <em>Crysis Warhead<\/em> is a stand-alone expansion to <em>Crysis<\/em> that was released in 2008. It is optimized better than the original <em>Crysis<\/em> to look as good with less hardware resources required to render it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/CrysisWarhead.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-24249\" title=\"CrysisWarhead\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/CrysisWarhead.jpg?resize=300%2C187\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/CrysisWarhead.jpg?resize=300%2C187 300w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/CrysisWarhead-1024x640.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/CrysisWarhead.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We test first at 1920&#215;1200 with 2xAA at maxed-out Enthusiast (Very High) settings.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/WAR-19.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25406\" title=\"WAR-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/WAR-19.jpg?resize=482%2C704\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/WAR-19.jpg?resize=482%2C704 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/WAR-19-205x300.jpg 205w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now we test at 1680&#215;1050 with 2xAA\/16xAF with maxed-out in-game &#8220;Enthusiast&#8221; (very high) settings:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/WAR-16.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25407\" title=\"WAR-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/WAR-16.jpg?resize=482%2C841\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Even the overclocked HD 6670 falls short of the GTS 450 while the HD 6790 is solidly faster than the GTX 550 Ti.\u00a0 We would not use DX10 at all for playing this game but would instead use DX9 settings for our target cards.<\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: Crysis Warhead--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2>FarCry 2<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/farcry2-jpg.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"farcry2\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/farcry2_thumb-jpg.jpg?resize=244%2C154\" border=\"0\" alt=\"farcry2\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a> <em> <\/em><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Far Cry 2<\/em> uses the name of the original <em>Far Cry<\/em> but it is not connected to the first game as it brings you a new setting and a new story. Ubisoft created it based on their Dunia Engine. The game setting takes place in an unnamed African country, during an uprising between two rival warring factions. Your mission is to kill \u201cThe Jackal\u201d; the Nietzsche-quoting mercenary that arms both sides of the conflict that you are dropped into.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Far Cry 2<\/em> game world is loaded in the background and on the fly to create a completely seamless open world. The Dunia game engine provides good visuals that scale well. The <em>Far Cry 2<\/em> design team actually went to Africa to give added realism to this game. One thing to especially note is <em>Far Cry 2\u2019s<\/em> very realistic fire propagation by their engine that is a far cry from the scripted fire and explosions that we are used to seeing.<\/p>\n<p>First we test <em>Far Cry 2<\/em> benchmark at 1920&#215;1200 resolution and we use the Ranch Long benchmark with ultra settings plus 8xAA.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fc2-19-8.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25408\" title=\"fc2-19-8\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fc2-19-8.jpg?resize=482%2C611\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fc2-19-8.jpg?resize=482%2C611 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fc2-19-8-236x300.jpg 236w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now we test at 1680&#215;1050 with 8xAA.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fc2-16-8.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25409\" title=\"fc2-16-8\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fc2-16-8.jpg?resize=482%2C814\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fc2-16-8.jpg?resize=482%2C814 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fc2-16-8-177x300.jpg 177w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Finally we stay at 1680&#215;1050 but drop the AA from 8x- to 2xAA.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fc2-16-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25410\" title=\"fc2-16-2\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fc2-16-2.jpg?resize=482%2C608\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fc2-16-2.jpg?resize=482%2C608 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/fc2-16-2-237x300.jpg 237w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>n <em>Far Cry 2,<\/em> the GTX 550 Ti is faster than the HD 6790 and the GTS 450 even beats the overclocked HD 6670 by a large margin.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: Far Cry 2--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2>World in Conflict Soviet Assault<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/wic-jpg.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"wic\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/wic_thumb-jpg.jpg?resize=244%2C154\" border=\"0\" alt=\"wic\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>World In Conflict<\/em> is set in an alternate history Earth where the Cold War did not end and Russia invaded the USA in 1989 and the remaining Americans decided to strike back. <em>World in Conflict (WiC)<\/em> is a real-time tactical\/strategy video game developed by Massive Entertainment and released in 2007.\u00a0 The expansion, <em>Soviet Assault<\/em>, was released in 2009.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Although it is generally considered a real-time strategy (RTS) game, <em>World in Conflict <\/em>includes gameplay typical of real-time tactical (RTT) games. <em>WiC<\/em> is filled with real vehicles from both the Russian and the American military. There are also tactical aids, including calling in massive bombing raids, access to chemical warfare, nuclear weapons, and far more.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Here is yet another amazing and very customizable and detailed DX10 benchmark that is available in-game or as a stand-alone. We use the full retail game&#8217;s in-game benchmark as it offers more settings than the demo and is updated by patches. The particle effects and explosions in <em>World in Conflict Soviet Assault<\/em> are truly spectacular! Every setting is fully maxed out.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">We start our benching at 1920&#215;1200:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/wic-192.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25413\" title=\"wic-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/wic-192.jpg?resize=482%2C364\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/wic-192.jpg?resize=482%2C364 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/wic-192-300x226.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Now we test at 1680&#215;1050<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/wic-162.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25414\" title=\"wic-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/wic-162.jpg?resize=482%2C442\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/wic-162.jpg?resize=482%2C442 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/wic-162-300x275.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>Our target Radeons can not achieve playable results in this game at 1680&#215;1050 with maxed out settings.\u00a0 The GTS 450 is faster than the new Radeons and nearly ties the HD 5770.<!--pagetitle: World in Conflict--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: left;\">Just Cause 2<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/justcause2_25x16.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-17937\" title=\"JustCause2_25x16\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/justcause2_25x16.jpg?resize=300%2C187\" alt=\"JustCause2_25x16\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/justcause2_25x16.jpg?resize=300%2C187 300w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/justcause2_25x16-1024x640.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a> <em>Just Cause 2<\/em> is a 2010 sandbox-style action video game by Swedish developer Avalanche Studios and Eidos Interactive and is the sequel to the 2006 video game, J<em>ust Cause. Just Cause 2<\/em> employs the Avalanche Engine 2.0 which an updated version of the engine used in the original and there are impressive visuals as it is made just for DX10.<\/p>\n<p>It is set on the fictional tropical island of Panau in Southeast Asia. Rico Rodriguez returns as the protagonist who aims to overthrow the evil dictator &#8220;Baby&#8221; Panay and also to confront his former boss, rogue agent Tom Sheldon. The game play is similar to that of its predecessor in that the player is free to roam the huge open world without a need to focus on the storyline. The <em>Just Cause 2<\/em> AI has been rewritten and it even includes dual-grappling hooks which give players the ability to tether unlimited objects to each other including the tethering of enemies to vehicles and to each other which works very well as one of your goals is to cause maximum chaos. It is a lot of fun!<\/p>\n<p>Here are the maximum settings available to a GeForce card; the bottom two, the Bokeh Filter and GPU water simulation, are unavailable to Radeons and they are left off on all runs to give solid apples-to-apples comparisons for all of our tested video cards and we used the Dark Tower benchmark built into the retail game. <a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/JustCause2_GeForce2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-17926\" title=\"JustCause2_GeForce\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/JustCause2_GeForce2.jpg?resize=330%2C346\" alt=\"JustCause2_GeForce\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/JustCause2_GeForce2.jpg?resize=330%2C346 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/JustCause2_GeForce2-285x300.jpg 285w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 330px) 100vw, 330px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>First here are the benches at 1920&#215;1200 with 8xAA:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/jc2-192.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25415\" title=\"jc2-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/jc2-192.jpg?resize=482%2C408\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/jc2-192.jpg?resize=482%2C408 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/jc2-192-300x253.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s look at the performance at 1680&#215;1050 with 8xAA:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/jc2-162.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25416\" title=\"jc2-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/jc2-162.jpg?resize=482%2C446\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/jc2-162.jpg?resize=482%2C446 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/jc2-162-300x277.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Again it takes the overclocked HD 6670 to catch and beat the stock GTX 450.\u00a0 Overclocking the HD 6670 and dropping the AA nearly makes the game playable in maxed out DX11.<\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: Just Cause 2--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\">Tom Clancy&#8217;s H.A.W.X.<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/hawx_dx10.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"HAWX_dx10\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/hawx_dx10.jpg?resize=150%2C150\" alt=\"HAWX_dx10\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em> <\/em><em>Tom Clancy&#8217;s H.A.W.X.<\/em> is an air combat video game developed published by Ubisoft. It was released in United States on March 6, 2009. You have the opportunity to fly 54 aircraft over real world locations and cities in somewhat realistic environments that are created with satellite data. This game is a more of a take on flying than a real simulation and it has received mixed reviews.<\/p>\n<p>The game story takes place during the time of <em>Tom Clancy&#8217;s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. H.A.W.X.<\/em> is set in the year 2014 where private military companies have replaced government-run military in many countries. The player is placed into the cockpit as an elite ex-military pilot who is recruited by one of these corporations to work for them as a mercenary. You later return to the US Air Force with a team as you try to prevent a full scale terrorist attack on the United States which was started by your former employer. <em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>H.A.W.X.<\/em> runs on DX10.1 faster and with more detail than on the DX10 pathway.\u00a0 Let&#8217;s check out <em>H.A.W.X.<\/em> with our top cards at 1920&#215;1200 with fully maxed out in-game settings and 8xAA:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx-192.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25417\" title=\"hawx-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx-192.jpg?resize=482%2C402\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx-192.jpg?resize=482%2C402 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx-192-300x250.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a> Here are our results at 1680\u00d71050 resolution:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx-16-8.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25418\" title=\"hawx-16-8\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx-16-8.jpg?resize=482%2C501\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx-16-8.jpg?resize=482%2C501 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx-16-8-288x300.jpg 288w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s drop the AA completely while we leave the resolution at 1680&#215;1050.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx-16-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25419\" title=\"hawx-16-1\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx-16-1.jpg?resize=482%2C290\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx-16-1.jpg?resize=482%2C290 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx-16-1-300x180.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The stock GTS 450 Ti sits well ahead of the HD 6670 although all of our cards except for the GT 430 can now give playable frame rates.<\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: H.A.W.X.--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h3>Resident Evil 5<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/re5dx10.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"RE5DX10\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/re5dx10.jpg?resize=150%2C150\" alt=\"RE5DX10\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a> <em> <\/em><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Resident Evil 5<\/em> is a survival horror third-person shooter developed and published by Capcom that has become the best selling single title in the series. The game is the seventh installment in the Resident Evil series and it was released for Windows in September 2009. Resident Evil 5 revolves around two investigators pulled into a bio-terrorist threat in a fictional town in Africa. <em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Resident Evil 5<\/em> features online co-op play over the Internet and also takes advantage of Nvidia\u2019s 3D Vision technology. The PC version comes with exclusive content the consoles do not have. The developer&#8217;s emphasis is on optimizing high frame rates but they have also implemented HDR, tone mapping, depth of field and motion blur into the game.<\/p>\n<p><em>Resident Evil 5<\/em>&#8216;s custom game engine, \u2018MT Framework&#8217;, already supports DX10 to benefit from less memory usage and faster loading. <em>Resident Evil 5<\/em> gives you choice as to DX10 or Dx 9 and we naturally ran the DX10 pathway. There are two benchmarks built-into <em>Resident Evil 5<\/em>. We chose the variable benchmark as it is best suited for testing video cards. Here it is at 1920\u00d71200 resolution with maxed out in-game setting plus 8xAA:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/re5-194.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25420\" title=\"re5-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/re5-194.jpg?resize=482%2C410\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/re5-194.jpg?resize=482%2C410 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/re5-194-300x255.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The overclocked HD 6670 nearly catches the GTS 450.\u00a0 Finally we test at 1680&#215;1050.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/re5-163.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25421\" title=\"re5-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/re5-163.jpg?resize=482%2C412\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/re5-163.jpg?resize=482%2C412 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/re5-163-300x256.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>All of our video cards turn in respectable performances and their overall playability is similar at except for the GT 430.  And this time we see the GTS 550 lead over HD 6670 at all clocks at its target resolution of 1680&#215;1050 but the HD 6790 is faster still at all tested resolutions and nearly catches the GTX 550 Ti.<\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: Resident Evil 5--><!--nextpage--><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/stalker_cs-jpg.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"STALKER_CS\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/stalker_cs_thumb-jpg.jpg?resize=244%2C154\" border=\"0\" alt=\"STALKER_CS\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a> <em> <\/em><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Call of Pripyat<\/em> is the third game in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. All of these games have non-linear storylines which feature role-playing game elements. In both games, the player assumes the identity of a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.; an illegal artifact scavenger in \u201cThe Zone\u201d which encompasses about 30 square kilometers. It is the location of an alternate reality story surrounding the Chernobyl Power Plant after another (fictitious) explosion. <em>S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Call of Pripyat<\/em> features \u201ca living breathing world\u201d with highly developed NPC creature AI.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>Call of Pripyat <\/em>is compatible with DirectX 8, 9, 10 and 10.1. It uses the X-ray 1.6 Engine<strong> <\/strong>with dX 11, one outstanding feature being the inclusion of real-time GPU tessellation.\u00a0 It also features a Shader model 3.0 &amp; 4.0 graphics engine featuring HDR, parallax and normal mapping, soft shadows, motion blur, weather effects and day-to-night cycles. As with other engines using deferred shading, the original DX9c X-ray Engine does not support anti-aliasing with dynamic lighting enabled, although the DX10 and DX 11 versions do.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">We are using the stand-alone \u201cofficial\u201d benchmark by <em>Clear Sky\u2019<\/em>s creators. We picked the most stressful test out of the four, \u201cSun shafts\u201d. It brings the heaviest penalty due to its extreme use of shaders to create DX10\/DX10.1 and DX11 effects. We ran this benchmark fully maxed out in DX11 with \u201cultra\u201d settings plus 4xAA, including applying edge-detect MSAA which chokes performance even further.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Here we present our maxed out DX11 settings for <em>S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Call of Pripyat<\/em> DX11 benchmark with 2xAA at 1680&#215;1050 and ultra settings:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/cop-max.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25422\" title=\"cop-max\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/cop-max.jpg?resize=482%2C803\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/cop-max.jpg?resize=482%2C803 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/cop-max-180x300.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The GTX 460 beats its competition but is still too low in the minimums.  Next we keep the at resolution at 1680&#215;1050 but drop AA completely and our settings to medium.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/cop-med.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25423\" title=\"cop-med\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/cop-med.jpg?resize=482%2C720\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/cop-med.jpg?resize=482%2C720 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/cop-med-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This game is still really hard on entry level and mid-range video cards playing on the DX11 pathway. The GTS 450 is faster than the overclocked HD 6670.  We would recommend dropping details further if you want to play at 1680&#215;1050 in DX11.<\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: Call of Pripyat--><!--nextpage--> <span style=\"color: #ffff00;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: large;\">Aliens vs Predator<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span> <strong> <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/AvP_SS.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-20450\" title=\"AvP_SS\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/AvP_SS.jpg?resize=300%2C187\" alt=\"AvP_SS\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/AvP_SS.jpg?resize=300%2C187 300w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/AvP_SS-1024x640.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/AvP_SS.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><em>Aliens vs. Predator<\/em>, known to fans as Aliens versus Predator 3 or AvP3 is a video game developed by Rebellion Developments, and published by Sega in February 2010. It is the sixth game of the Aliens versus Predator game series.<\/p>\n<p>There are three campaigns in the game, one for each race or faction (the Predators, the Aliens and the Colonial Marines), that form one main storyline although they differ in objectives depending on your choice of campaign. Alien vs Predators DX11 benchmark is a stand alone bench that as the name says is only for DX11 cards. It is more demanding than actually playing the game generally.<\/p>\n<p>First we bench at 1920&#215;1200 with maxed out settings plus 2xAA.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/avp-192.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25424\" title=\"avp-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/avp-192.jpg?resize=482%2C412\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/avp-192.jpg?resize=482%2C412 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/avp-192-300x256.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now we test at 1680&#215;1050 and 2xAA.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/avp-16-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25425\" title=\"avp-16-2\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/avp-16-2.jpg?resize=482%2C412\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/avp-16-2.jpg?resize=482%2C412 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/avp-16-2-300x256.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Finally we dump AA and drop our settings to medium.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/avp-16-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25426\" title=\"avp-16-1\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/avp-16-1.jpg?resize=482%2C359\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/avp-16-1.jpg?resize=482%2C359 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/avp-16-1-300x223.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>With Aliens vs Predator DX11 benchmark, the GTS 450 is noticeably faster than the overclocked HD 6670.<br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: AvP--><strong><!--nextpage--><\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong><strong>DiRT 2<\/strong> <strong> <\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/dirt2SS.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-20892\" title=\"dirt2SS\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/dirt2SS.jpg?resize=300%2C187\" alt=\"dirt2SS\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/dirt2SS.jpg?resize=300%2C187 300w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/dirt2SS-1024x640.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a> <\/strong><em>Colin McRae: DiRT 2<\/em> is a racing game that was released in September 2009, and is the sequel to <em>Colin McRae: Dirt.<\/em> It includes many new race-events, including stadium events as your RV travels from one event to another in many real-world environments across four continents. <em>Dirt 2<\/em> includes five different event types even allowing you to compete at new locations. It also includes a new multiplayer mode.<\/p>\n<p><em> <\/em><em>Dirt 2<\/em> is powered by an updated version of the EGO engine which was featured in <em>Race Driver: Grid<\/em>. This updated EGO engine also features an updated physics engine. We are using the <em>Dirt 2<\/em> full retail game built-in benchmark at the highest &#8220;ultra&#8221; DX11 setting with 8xAA applied.<\/p>\n<p>First we test at 1920&#215;1200:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/dirt-19.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25427\" title=\"dirt-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/dirt-19.jpg?resize=482%2C502\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/dirt-19.jpg?resize=482%2C502 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/dirt-19-288x300.jpg 288w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The GTS 450 is ahead of the HD 6670 and HD 5770 is ahead of the GTX 550 Ti and the HD 6790 moves past both of them but our tested resolution is too demanding.  What about 1680&#215;1050?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/dirt-16.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25428\" title=\"dirt-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/dirt-16.jpg?resize=482%2C700\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/dirt-16.jpg?resize=482%2C700 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/dirt-16-206x300.jpg 206w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The GTX 450 is faster than the overclocked HD 6670.\u00a0 We see decent scaling on the new Radeon&#8217;s overclock and the effect of changing the AA on performance.\u00a0 However, even the lowest priced cards except for the GT 430 can play this game satisfactorily at medium-high resolutions if you are willing to sacrifice some details.<\/p>\n<p><strong><!--pagetitle: Dirt 2--><!--nextpage--><\/strong><strong> <\/strong><strong><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Metro 2033<\/span><\/span><br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/strong><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/metro2033-SS.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-20446\" title=\"metro2033-SS\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/metro2033-SS.jpg?resize=300%2C187\" alt=\"metro2033-SS\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/metro2033-SS.jpg?resize=300%2C187 300w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/metro2033-SS-1024x640.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/metro2033-SS.jpg 1680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/span> <span style=\"font-size: small;\"><em>Metro 2033<\/em> is the &#8220;Crysis&#8221; of 2010. It is a very demanding game on any PC with the very latest DX11 visuals. <\/span><em>Metro 2033<\/em> is an action-oriented video game with a combination of survival horror, and first-person shooter elements. The game is based on the novel &#8220;Metro 2033&#8221; by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. It was developed by 4A Games in Ukraine and released in March 2010.<\/p>\n<p>The game utilizes multi-platform 4A Engine and there is some doubt if the games engine is related to the original XRay engine used in <em>S.T.A.L.K.E.R.<\/em>. The <em>Metro 2033 <\/em>story takes place mostly in post-apocalyptic Moscow&#8217;s metro system but occasionally the player has to go above ground on some missions and to search for valuables. <em>Metro 2033<\/em>&#8216;s locations reflect the dark atmosphere of real metro tunnels but in a much more dangerous and lethal manner. Strange phenomena and noises are frequent, and mostly the player has to rely only on their flashlight to find their way around in otherwise total darkness. Even more deadly is the surface as it is severely irradiated and a gas mask must be worn at all times due to the toxic air. <span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">THQ has released an official benchmark for <\/span><em>Metro 2033<\/em> which provides minimum\/maximum\/average framerates, and you can adjust many graphics settings including PhysX, AA, DOF and tessellation, and the number of runs.<span style=\"font-size: small;\"> Our presets are set to maximum (very high) with 1xAA and no PhysX nor DOF enabled.<\/span> <span style=\"font-size: small;\">Here is our first chart at 1920&#215;1200. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/metro-192.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25429\" title=\"metro-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/metro-192.jpg?resize=482%2C360\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/metro-192.jpg?resize=482%2C360 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/metro-192-300x224.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">We are noticing severe lag.<\/span> <span style=\"font-size: small;\">We continue to test at Very High settings with AA and DOF off except as noted and n<\/span>ow at 1680&#215;1050:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/metro-162.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25430\" title=\"metro-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/metro-162.jpg?resize=482%2C412\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/metro-162.jpg?resize=482%2C412 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/metro-162-300x256.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">All of our cards struggle with <em>Metro 2033<\/em> with the aggressive settings that we used. <\/span><em>Metro 2033<\/em> is an interesting benchmark and we see the HD 5770 is barely ahead of the GTX 550 Ti while the HD 6790 is faster than either of them but the GTS 450 beats the HD 6670.  <span style=\"font-size: small;\"><!--pagetitle: Metro 2033--><!--nextpage--><\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><strong>F1 2010<\/strong> <\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><em>F1 2010<\/em> is a racing game<\/span> based on the 2010 season of the Formula One world championship and the sequel to the 2009 video game in the same series. It was released in September 2010 by Codemasters. The EGO 1.5 engine powers it.<span style=\"font-size: small;\"> The weather system is one of the best seen in a racing game and requires the player to adjust to changing track conditions. Watch out for bad <\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\">AI <\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\">drivers!<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/F1_2010.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-24251\" title=\"F1_2010\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/F1_2010.jpg?resize=300%2C187\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/F1_2010.jpg?resize=300%2C187 300w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/F1_2010-1024x640.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a> <span style=\"font-size: small;\">First we test at 1920&#215;1200 using ultra settings with the built-in benchmark.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/f1-192.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25431\" title=\"f1-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/f1-192.jpg?resize=482%2C501\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/f1-192.jpg?resize=482%2C501 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/f1-192-288x300.jpg 288w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">We have unacceptable dips in the minimums for our target cards, especially the HD 6570 which sputters around the track.<\/span> The HD 6970 keeps pace with the GTX 460.  <span style=\"font-size: small;\">Now we test at 1680&#215;1050.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/f1-16.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25432\" title=\"f1-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/f1-16.jpg?resize=482%2C500\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/f1-16.jpg?resize=482%2C500 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/f1-16-289x300.jpg 289w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> <\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Now the HD 6670 has the advantage over the GTS 450. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: F1 2010--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Lost Planet 2<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/LP2DX11.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-21705\" title=\"LP2DX11\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/LP2DX11.jpg?resize=300%2C187\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/LP2DX11.jpg?resize=300%2C187 300w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/LP2DX11-1024x640.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/LP2DX11.jpg 1680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/strong> <em>Lost Planet 2 <\/em>is the sequel to <em>Lost Planet: Extreme Condition<\/em> and is also made by Capcom. The events take place ten years after the first game and on the same, now thawed, EDN III. The PC version was released on October 12, 2010 and it runs on the MT-Framework 2.0 engine; an updated version of the engine used in several Capcom games.  Campaign mode can have up to 4 players working together over the Internet. <em>Lost Planet 2<\/em> allows players to create and customize their own characters which will allow them to unlock more things after leveling up and downloading content.<\/p>\n<p>We are using the retail game&#8217;s built-in benchmark in DX11 with maximum settings. As the game is quite demanding, we first test at 1920&#215;1200 resolution with 4xAA.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp2-192.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25433\" title=\"lp2-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp2-192.jpg?resize=482%2C347\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp2-192.jpg?resize=482%2C347 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp2-192-300x215.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s test at 1680&#215;1050 and with 4xAA.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp2-16-4.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25434\" title=\"lp2-16-4\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp2-16-4.jpg?resize=482%2C409\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp2-16-4.jpg?resize=482%2C409 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp2-16-4-300x254.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now at 1680&#215;1050 but with no AA.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp2-16-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25435\" title=\"lp2-16-1\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp2-16-1.jpg?resize=482%2C307\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp2-16-1.jpg?resize=482%2C307 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/lp2-16-1-300x191.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Our settings are still too demanding although the GTS 450 is much faster than the HD 6670 although we would not play this game in DX11 with our target cards.<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: Lost Planet 2--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h3>Tom Clancy&#8217;s H.A.W.X. 2<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/HAWX2_DX11.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-22559\" title=\"HAWX2_DX11\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/HAWX2_DX11.jpg?resize=300%2C187\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/HAWX2_DX11.jpg?resize=300%2C187 300w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/HAWX2_DX11-1024x640.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/HAWX2_DX11.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a> Tom Clancy&#8217;s <em>H.A.W.X. 2<\/em> is an air combat video game developed by Ubisoft for PC. We are using the built-in benchmark from the full retail game. The way tessellation is implemented shows AMD graphics cards are perhaps unnaturally slow compared with other DX11 titles although their newer drivers have made significant performance gains over earlier drivers in <em>H.A.W.X. 2. <\/em>without sacrificing any noticeable image quality.<\/p>\n<p><em> <\/em><em> <\/em><em>H.A.W.X. 2<\/em> runs on DX11 faster and with more detail than on the DX10 pathway. Here the emphasis is on terrain tessellation which looks outstanding in DX11 and &#8220;flat&#8221; in DX10. Let&#8217;s check out <em>H.A.W.X. 2<\/em> with our video cards at 1920&#215;1200 and with fully maxed out in-game settings and with 8x.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx2-192.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25436\" title=\"hawx2-19\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx2-192.jpg?resize=482%2C411\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx2-192.jpg?resize=482%2C411 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx2-192-300x255.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now we test at 1680&#215;1050 with the same maxed out details and 8xAA.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx2-163.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25437\" title=\"hawx2-16\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx2-163.jpg?resize=482%2C342\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx2-163.jpg?resize=482%2C342 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/hawx2-163-300x212.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The GTX 450 Ti simply flys away from the overclocked HD 6670.\u00a0 The GeForce GPUs &#8211; except for the GT 430 &#8211; are top gun in this benchmark.  <!--pagetitle: H.A.W.X. 2--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>Heaven 2.5 Unigine<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/unigine-1-0.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"unigine-1.0\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/unigine-1-0.jpg?resize=150%2C150\" alt=\"unigine-1.0\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Finally we come to our last benchmark, Heaven 2.5, on the Unigine engine. It uses DX11 and heavy tessellation which will strain any graphics card. At least two DX11 games based on Unigine are expected to be released this year. We use the setting for &#8220;extreme tessellation&#8221; and high shaders and we also set AF to 16x. We will tell you right now that this test chokes the GTX 590 at the highest settings and resolution so we do not run it even at 1920&#215;1200 for lesser cards.\u00a0 Here are our results at 1680&#215;1050 with 2xAA and maxed out settings (tessellation is extreme).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/heaven-16-2max.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25438\" title=\"heaven-16-2max\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/heaven-16-2max.jpg?resize=482%2C501\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/heaven-16-2max.jpg?resize=482%2C501 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/heaven-16-2max-288x300.jpg 288w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now let&#8217;s still look at 1680&#215;1050 but drop our shaders to medium and our tessellation from extreme to normal:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/heaven-16-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25439\" title=\"heaven-16-1\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/heaven-16-1.jpg?resize=482%2C412\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/heaven-16-1.jpg?resize=482%2C412 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/heaven-16-1-300x256.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>The GTS 450 is significantly faster than the overclocked HD 6670 in the extreme and medium settings of this benchmark.  However, this is a synthetic benchmark and we will withhold judgment until we play PC games using the Unigine engine.<br \/>\n<!--pagetitle: Heaven 2.5--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: Conclusion--><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Price to Performance<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The HD 6670 and HD 6570 lead the GT430 in all of the  benchmarks and it is a solid improvement over that mostly HTPC card.\u00a0  As cards that require no external power besides the PCIe slot, these new Radeons would be excellent for low power usage.<\/p>\n<p>We note that the  GTS 450 and HD 5770 stand out as performance wild cards to put up against the two new cards since they are all priced similarly at about $80 to $100.   Leaving the GTX 450 and the HD 5770 off of our chart would have made a completely different  impression of the new Turks Radeons.  The HD 6670 does succeed as a good-quality  successor to the HD 5670 although it is totally eclipsed by the GTX 450&#8217;s  strong price to performance ratio.\u00a0 It makes it impossible for us to recommend the new cards based on their suggested price as <em>performance alone does not redeem them with so many other good choices available.\u00a0 However, as low-power cards suited for light gaming, they are excellent choices for HTPC!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s take a look at current suggested and very general USA etail pricing.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>HD 6570 &#8211; $79<\/li>\n<li>HD 6670 &#8211; $99<\/li>\n<li>GTX 450 &#8211; $80-$100 ($80 after MiR for the stock versions to around $100 for the highly overclocked version)<\/li>\n<li>HD 5770 &#8211; $119 minus $20 rebate<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We have to wait and see how street pricing affects the new cards before we can make a strong recommendation for them based on performance.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Did AMD succeed with HD 6670\/6570?<\/strong><strong> <\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>It appears that AMD succeeded in doing what they set out to do.  They succeeded in beating the GT 430\/440&#8217;s performance; something the aging HD 5570\/5670 was unable to do even super-overclocked.  However, it also appears that AMD was somewhat troubled by the GTS 450 pricing and Nvidia&#8217;s willingness to discount it to gain market share.  If this card did not exist and the HD 5770 was not priced about the same price as the HD 6670, we would have no trouble recommending it.  However, they do exist and they make it hard to recommend less powerful and similarly-priced new cards unless you have low-power requirements.<\/p>\n<p>It  is pretty clear from our 28 games and three synthetic tests that the Turks GPUs make for quality mainstream video cards.  The new HD 6670\/6570&#8217;s  success will depend on market pricing and also what Nvidia does with their GeForce pricing as the two companies respond to each other.   Basically, the HD 6670\/6570 is an improvement in every way over the HD 5000 series that it replaces.<\/p>\n<h2>The HD 6670<\/h2>\n<h3>Pros and Cons:<\/h3>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Pros:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The HD 6670 is much faster than its predecessor, HD 5670 and is it faster than the GT 430.<\/li>\n<li>Low power usage!<\/li>\n<li> There is further room for overclocking and good scalability.<\/li>\n<li> New architecture brings support for GPU computing and a level of performance way beyond the last generation.<\/li>\n<li> DX11 and greatly improved support for tessellation, 1 GB vRAM and a 128-bit pathway brings more performance over the older series and the GT 430.<\/li>\n<li> CrossFire-X technology allows you to harness two or more GPUs for faster gaming at higher detail levels and resolutions.<\/li>\n<li>Enhanced AA and more control over settings<\/li>\n<li>Experience 3-panel Eyefinity for much less expense than with Nvidia&#8217;s competing Surround.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Cons:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> It is expensive at $99 &#8211; same as the HD 5770 after rebate or the highly overclocked GTS 450, both of which are faster; the market will ultimately decide the pricing<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>The HD 6570<\/h2>\n<h3>Pros and Cons:<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The HD 6570 is much faster than its predecessor, HD 5570 and is it faster than the GT 430.<\/li>\n<li>Low power usage!<\/li>\n<li> New architecture brings support for GPU computing and a level of performance way beyond the last generation.<\/li>\n<li> DX11 and greatly improved support for tessellation, 512MB vRAM and a 128-bit pathway brings even more performance over the older series and the GT 230\/430.<\/li>\n<li> CrossFire-X technology allows you to harness two or more GPUs for faster gaming at higher detail levels and resolutions.<\/li>\n<li>Enhanced AA and more control over settings<\/li>\n<li>Experience 3-panel Eyefinity for much less expense than with Nvidia&#8217;s competing Surround.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> It is expensive at $79 &#8211; same as the stock or mildly overclocked GTS  450 &#8211; a faster card; the market will ultimately decide the  pricing<\/li>\n<li>Overclocking potential is unknown and limited by Catalyst Control Center.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We do not know what the future will bring, but these new Turks HD 6670\/6570s brings decent low-power performers to the Radeon family.   Look for them immediately at an etailer. This editor believes that AMD brings a very full-featured complete DX11 GPU lineup to the market that will find good acceptance among customers and their fans alike. The new Turks architecture is a solid improvement over Redwood and it translates to higher performance in gaming.<\/p>\n<p>If you currently game on an older generation video card, you will do yourself a big favor by upgrading. The move to a Turks-based video card will give you better visuals on the DX11 pathway and you are no doubt thinking of CrossFire-X if you want to get even higher performance. Perhaps you want to use Eyefinity&#8217;s multi-panel display (which we are going to explore in a future article versus 3-panel Surround).<\/p>\n<p>The competition is hot as the prices on even the new video cards have softened and Nvidia offers their own set of features including PhysX, CUDA and 3D Vision.  Stay tuned, there is a lot coming from us at ABT.   Stay tuned for a further evaluation of HD 6990 versus GTX 590 at 5760&#215;1080 and 2560&#215;1600 and also an evaluation of 3D Vision\/Surround and HD3D.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Poppin<\/p>\n<p>ABT Senior Editor<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: left;\">Please join us in our <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/abt\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\">Forums<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: left;\">Become a Fan on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/AlienBabelTech\/123268467142\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/AlienBabelTech\/123268467142', 'Facebook']);\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: left;\">Follow us on <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/alienbabeltech\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/twitter.com\/alienbabeltech', 'Twitter']);\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: left;\">For the latest updates from ABT, please <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?feed=rss2\" target=\"_blank\">join our RSS News Feed<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: left;\">Join our Distributed Computing teams<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 60px;\">\n<li>Folding@Home &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech &#8211; 164304<\/li>\n<li>SETI@Home &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech &#8211; 138705<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldcommunitygrid.org\/reg\/viewRegister.do?teamID=3P39R3SRV1\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.worldcommunitygrid.org\/reg\/viewRegister.do?teamID=3P39R3SRV1', 'World Community Grid &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech']);\" target=\"_blank\">World Community Grid &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=25307\"><img decoding=\"async\" align=top title=\"Author: Mark Poppin\" src=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Article-Image4.png\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":25462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2533,7814,6,7],"tags":[72,4049,2398,4625,4624,121,4623],"class_list":["post-25307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abt-news","category-articles","category-news","category-technology","tag-amd","tag-gts-450","tag-hd-5770","tag-hd-6570","tag-hd-6670","tag-nvidia","tag-turks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}