{"id":33257,"date":"2013-01-15T06:58:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-15T06:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=33257"},"modified":"2013-08-02T16:23:30","modified_gmt":"2013-08-02T15:23:30","slug":"exploring-frame-time-measurement-part-3-the-gtx-680-versus-the-hd-7970-ghz-ed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/exploring-frame-time-measurement-part-3-the-gtx-680-versus-the-hd-7970-ghz-ed\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring &#8220;Frame time&#8221; measurement &#8211; Part 3 &#8211; the GTX 680 versus the HD 7970 GHz Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"left\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ < ![CDATA[\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-7021221536180758\"; \/* 468x60, created 11\/11\/09 *\/ google_ad_slot = \"1949837292\"; google_ad_width = 468; google_ad_height = 60;\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\/\/ < ![CDATA[\n\n\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In our last two evaluations, we established that <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=33060\">Fraps is a very good measure<\/a> of frame rates (fps) as well as its ability to measure frame times. Fraps outputs results that can be charted in Excel or a similar spreadsheet program if &#8220;frametimes&#8221; is checked (along with &#8220;FPS&#8221; and &#8220;MinMaxAvg&#8221; which are usually measured, under the &#8220;FPS&#8221; tab).\u00a0 And we also established that <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=33091\">using a SSD versus a HDD<\/a> for benching\u00a0does not generally impact frame time smoothness although we will take care to use identical drives when benchmarking.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Metro-frame-times.jpg?resize=360%2C172\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We looked at\u00a0eleven in-game benchmarks &#8211;\u00a0especially the <em>STALKER, Call of Pripyat<\/em> stand-alone benchmark and <em>Metro 2033&#8217;s<\/em> official benchmark, as well as <em>Far Cry 2, <\/em>because their game engines also measures frame times. By comparing the game engines reported timing with Fraps frame time measurements, we found that the charts &#8211; although not identical &#8211; were so close as to nearly mirror each others results.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33232\" title=\"FrapsImage\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/FrapsImage1.jpg?resize=352%2C214\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/FrapsImage1.jpg?resize=352%2C214 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/FrapsImage1-300x182.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 352px) 100vw, 352px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">We feel reasonably confident as we proceed that Fraps is as useful a tool in reporting frame times as it is for frame rates. We also found that using a hard disk drive (HDD) versus a solid state drive (SSD)\u00a0has little impact using\u00a0Fraps to\u00a0measure the smoothness of a gaming experience although we shall always bench from identical drives.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/3ssds-1hdd.jpg?resize=300%2C255\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/>We are still using the stock-clocked GTX 680 in in this evaluation and we shall pit its frame time smoothness of delivery versus the HD 7970 at GHz edition clocks in eleven benchmarks. Raw frame rates simply do not convey the complete gaming experience and this\u00a0has been\u00a0especially illustrated with multi-GPU, where otherwise satisfactory frame rates may feel much slower than then they should due to uneven delivery of frames.\u00a0 And now we see this unevenness or &#8220;jitter&#8221; on single GPUs in some games.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/7970-gtx680.jpg?resize=300%2C179\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>One thing to note is that we have overclocked our Core i7-3770K CPU to 4.5GHz to make sure that there is no CPU bottleneck. We are testing at 1920&#215;1080 with a 120Hz display. We are testing eleven benchmarks in this Part 2, generally using 2x\/4xAA or 8xAA plus 16xAF and with maximum (ultra) DX11\/10.1\/10\/9c details whenever it is available. We are benching with GeForce 310.70 WHQL drivers and the very latest Catalyst 12-11 Beta 11 and the latest CAPs.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>An\u00a0Update\u00a0on our Last Testing, SSD vs HDD\u00a0smoothness differences\u00a0&#8211; using a faster SSD<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We noted few differences between the HDD and the SSD in terms of smoothness, possibly because we are using repeatable built-in benchmarks and timedemos.\u00a0 Of course, there are situations where the game must stream from the disk and\u00a0there can be choppiness, hitches or jitter if\u00a0the device is too slow to keep up with the requests.\u00a0 In that case, a faster drive could be very helpful.\u00a0 Of course, game developers have naturally targeted and optimized their streaming from\u00a0the HDD, not from the SSD.<\/p>\n<p>Games typically load content in the background as the player progresses through a scene.\u00a0 The game has to request data from the storage media and the\u00a0longer\u00a0it takes, the game may contain frames that\u00a0are not rendered evenly\u00a0as the rendering engine tries to keep up.\u00a0 In a worst case, the game may stall.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cgarena.com\/newsworld\/future_solid-state.php\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.cgarena.com\/newsworld\/future_solid-state.php', 'According to Intel']);\" >According to Intel<\/a>,\u00a0uneven frame delivery\u00a0occurs whenever 0.1 percent or less of total display pixels change for a duration of at least five frames.<\/p>\n<p>In all cases,\u00a0by their nature of being repeatable benchmarks, our\u00a0runs were very similar with no apparent jitter differences &#8211; except for two benches.\u00a0 <em>Resident Evil 5<\/em> showed the benchmark running on the Kingston SSD to be smoother in the begining than on\u00a0the OWC SSD; and <em>Far Cry 2<\/em> showed the benchmark running on the\u00a0OWC SSD to be\u00a0significantly smoother than on\u00a0the Kingston SSD.\u00a0 Since <em>Resident Evil 5<\/em>&#8216;s shorter (&#8220;variable&#8221;)\u00a0benchmark that we used in our evaluation&#8217;s Parts 1 and 2 is more CPU dependent than GPU-dependent, we are using the much longer &#8220;fixed&#8221; benchmark in this Part 3.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the Far Cry 2 (Ranch Short) bench as\u00a0run with a GTX 680 on the Kingston SSD:<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/FC2-SDD-FT.jpg?resize=550%2C264\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Here is the same bench run on the OWC SSD with the same GTX 680 and everything else, the same:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/fc2-680-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C263\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We see\u00a0that the OWC SSD\u00a0exhibits smoother framerate delivery and less incidents of jitter.\u00a0\u00a0In this particular case, we can assume that\u00a0a slower\u00a0drive can contribute to uneven delivery of framerate.\u00a0 \u00a0 At any rate, for this evaluation, we imaged our Kingston HyperX drives to our fastest SSD, the 240GB OWC Mercury EXTREME 6G, and reran all of our benches. We also imaged the HD 7970 partition to the same OWC SSD after we were done with the GeForce so our results in this comparison would be apples-to-apples and the differences would be caused by the graphics sub-system.<\/p>\n<p>If you are a gamer and you want absolutely the best chance\u00a0for the\u00a0ultimate gaming experience and you already have a\u00a0high-end PC, you might also\u00a0consider using a very fast SSD and seeing for yourself if you can\u00a0notice the possible differences between the HDD and a SSD in gaming.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s check out our hardware and software used for\u00a0this Part 3 of our ongoing evaluation testing gaming smoothness.\u00a0 Please note that we are using the OWC 240GB Mercury EXTREME 6G for all of our benching.<\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: Introduction--><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: Test Configuration--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"font-size: large;\"><strong>Test Configuration <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/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>\n<li>Intel Core i7 3770K (overclocked to 4.5GHz); Turbo is on.<\/li>\n<li>EVGA Z77 FTW motherboard (Intel Z77 chipset, latest beta BIOS, PCIe 3.0 specification; CrossFire\/SLI 16x+16x using Plex chip.)<\/li>\n<li>8GB Kingston DDR3 PC1866 Kingston RAM (4&#215;2 GB, dual-channel at 1866MHz; supplied by Kingston)<\/li>\n<li>Power Color Radeon HD 7970 (3GB, overclocked to GHz Edition speeds 1050\/6000MHz)<\/li>\n<li>Nvidia GTX 680 (2GB, 1006\/6008MHz, reference clocks), supplied by Nvidia<\/li>\n<li>Onboard Realtek Audio<\/li>\n<li>Two identical 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 hard drives configured and set up identically from drive image; one partition for Nvidia GeForce drivers and one for ATI Catalyst drivers<\/li>\n<li>Kingston 240GB HyperX SSD used for AMD partition, supplied by Kingston.<\/li>\n<li>Kingston 240GB HyperX 3K SSD used for Nvidia partition, supplied by Kingston<\/li>\n<li>OWC 240GB Mercury EXTREME Pro 4G used for both AMD and Nvidia, on loan from OWC used for all of the current benches.<\/li>\n<li>Thermaltake ToughPower 775 W power supply unit supplied by Thermaltake<\/li>\n<li>Thermaltake Overseer RX-I full tower case, supplied by Thermaltake<\/li>\n<li>Sapphire Vapor-X CPU cooler on loan from Sapphire<\/li>\n<li>Philips DVD SATA writer<\/li>\n<li>ASUS VG278 27&#8243; Light Boost enabled 3D Vision 2 ready 120Hz display<\/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>Fraps 3.5.9 full version<\/li>\n<li>Frafs Benchmark Viewer, latest beta<\/li>\n<li>ATi Catalyst 12-11 Beta11 drivers; highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver; use application settings; surface performance optimizations are off. Latest CAPs used.<\/li>\n<li>Catalyst Control Center used to set power draw to maximum for the HD 7970; clocks, voltage and fan profiles are stock<\/li>\n<li>EVGA PrecisionX used to set power draw to maximum for Nvidia cards; clocks voltage and fan profile are stock<\/li>\n<li>NVIDIA GeForce WHQL 310.70 High Quality; maximum performance<\/li>\n<li>Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates<\/li>\n<li>Latest DirectX<\/li>\n<li>All games are patched to their latest versions.<\/li>\n<li>vsync is forced off in the control panels.<\/li>\n<li>Varying AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied; 16xAF forced in control panel for <em>Crysis<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>All results show average frame rates and frame times<\/li>\n<li>Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.<\/li>\n<li>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.<\/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><\/p>\n<div><strong>DX10<em><\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Vantage (Jane Nash)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><em>World in Conflict, Soviet Assault<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Resident Evil 5<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Far Cry 2<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Crysis<\/strong><\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>DX11<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Heaven 3.0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>STALKER, Call of Pripyat<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Aliens vs. Predator<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Crysis 2<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Hitman Absolution<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Sleeping Dogs<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Before we head to the charts to see the frame time comparison between frame time results of the games played on SSD versus on HDD, let&#8217;s look at Frafs Benchmark Viewer and our methods for posting the charts that you will see in our frame time measurement evaluations.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: FraFs Bench Viewer &amp; Methodology--><\/p>\n<p><strong> Frafs Benchmark Viewer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Lindsay Bigelow, an established member (raffriff) of <a href=\"http:\/\/frapsforum.com\/threads\/new-tool-for-viewing-fraps-benchmark-files.2121\/\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/frapsforum.com\/threads\/new-tool-for-viewing-fraps-benchmark-files.2121\/', 'FrapsForum.com']);\" >FrapsForum.com<\/a>, developed an uncomplicated tool for simply dragging and dropping Fraps frame time csv files into a program, named Frafs Bench Viewer, that quickly makes a chart. We would like to support his efforts by also using his tool and encouraging our readers to also make these simple charts.<\/p>\n<p>Frafs Bench Viewer can be downloaded at <a href=\"http:\/\/sourceforge.net\/projects\/frafsbenchview\/files\/\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/sourceforge.net\/projects\/frafsbenchview\/files\/', 'SourceForge.com']);\" >SourceForge.com<\/a> or from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.softpedia.com\/get\/Multimedia\/Video\/Other-VIDEO-Tools\/FrafsBenchViewer.shtml\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.softpedia.com\/get\/Multimedia\/Video\/Other-VIDEO-Tools\/FrafsBenchViewer.shtml', 'Softpedia.com']);\" >Softpedia.com<\/a> as freeware. All you do is drag and drop a Fraps frametimes.csv file into the program and it automatically creates a customizable graph!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/frafsbenchviewer.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33085\" title=\"frafsbenchviewer\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/frafsbenchviewer.jpg?resize=480%2C253\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/frafsbenchviewer.jpg?resize=480%2C253 600w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/frafsbenchviewer-300x158.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Frafs Benchmark Viewer is a very useful an easy-to-use tool to display frame times and we encourage our readers to submit their own graphs and experiences on ABT forum. Because of the limitations of the program, we actually spend a lot of time comparing individual runs and charts made from them to pick\u00a0a &#8220;representative&#8221; run. If we just averaged all of the results, there would tend to be unexplained spikes. In our case, comparing many charts can lead us to conclude if a spike or dip in the frame time is &#8220;regular&#8221; to the run or not.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"FC2-HDD-FT\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/FC2-HDD-FT.jpg?resize=440%2C212\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/> Jitter becomes noticeable to gamers at different levels. Some are quite sensitive to it while others are less so. A 2ms to 4ms spike is very hard to notice, even with two displays side-by-side and maybe then\u00a0only in slow motion. However, a 16.7ms spike effectively cuts the frame rate in half on a 60hz monitor (with the appearance that the frame rate has suddenly dropped by 30fps for an instant) and beyond that, any spike or swing beyond 20ms is usually quite noticeable as unevenness &#8211; a stutter or jitter that disrupts the smooth delivery of the frames.<\/p>\n<p>There are 1,000 milliseconds in a second, so if we divide 1000 by the specified frame rates below, we find the following times as expressed in a chart:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/fps-ft.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33230\" title=\"fps-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/fps-ft.jpg?resize=255%2C201\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">We also like Frafs Benchmark Viewer as a simple and easy tool to create nearly instant graphs out of Fraps frame time runs as well as the ability to show the frame time chart rankings. This function will become very useful in comparing smooth frame delivery of two video cards.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"FC2-SSD-rank\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/FC2-SSD-rank.jpg?resize=438%2C203\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The numbers we\u00a0will be comparing are:<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Average time: <\/strong>Average time across the entire run<\/li>\n<li><strong>1% time: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99% of frames<\/li>\n<li><strong>0.1%: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99.9% of frames<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>There is one issue with the way that Frafs Benchmark Viewer displays their charts.\u00a0 The upper range of the chart is determined by the highest spike and there\u00a0may be some differences between the chart&#8217;s scale (also in the length of the runs between two video cards).\u00a0 In that case, the charts will be adjusted slightly as to give a more porportionate representation between them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">We plan to continue to use Fraps and Frafs Benchmark Viewer as we explore &#8220;smoothness&#8221; by measuring frame times, relating them to frame rates and perhaps posting Youtube videos of our own GTX 680 versus Radeon HD 7970 side-by-side runs at 60 fields per second, 120 fps, and 240 fps.\u00a0 We plan to\u00a0test all of the games in our 30-game benchmark suite.<\/p>\n<p>If you would like to weigh in on our future testing methods or to specifically discuss micro stutter and frame time testing methods, feel free to comment in the comment section, ask questions, make requests, or have a detailed discussion at <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/abt\/\">ABT forum<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, please continue on to Vantage as we compare fps and frame time runs of Jane Nash on SSD versus HDD.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: Vantage--><\/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 epecially 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 and on Jane Nash.<\/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\" alt=\"3DMarkVantage\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/3dmarkvantage_thumb-jpg.jpg?resize=244%2C154\" border=\"0\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Let\u2019s go right to the graphs and first check the overall Vantage results of the default benchmark GPU Test 1 with our overclocked i7-3770K and stock <strong>GTX 680<\/strong> score using the 240GB OWC Mercury EXTREME 6G SSD, the fastest SSD available to us.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33277\" title=\"vantage-680-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/vantage-680-ft.jpg?resize=549%2C285\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Below\u00a0is the benchmark&#8217;s first test, Jane Nash, run\u00a0at the <strong>HD 7970 GHz <\/strong>edition speeds.\u00a0 It is\u00a0faster than the GTX 680 at 118.24 fps\u00a0but it varies from run to run by about 1 fps. Remember that we are focusing in on two very specific and yet totally representative runs to give meaning to the charts.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/VANTAGE-7970-ft.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33306\" title=\"VANTAGE-7970-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/VANTAGE-7970-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C266\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/VANTAGE-7970-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C266 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/VANTAGE-7970-ft-300x145.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">They are very close, but the GeForce has more spikes than the Radeon. Lets&#8217;s look at the\u00a0ranking chart for the GTX 680:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33278\" title=\"vantage-680-RANK\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/vantage-680-RANK.jpg?resize=549%2C291\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">It appears that the Jane Nash scene has been optimized for frame rates and not for smoothness although only .1 of a percent of the time is actually spent at 39fps. Now check out the frame time chart for the HD 7970 at GHz clocks on the same OWC\u00a0SSD:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/VANTAGE-7970-RANK.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33307\" title=\"VANTAGE-7970-RANK\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/VANTAGE-7970-RANK.jpg?resize=550%2C266\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/VANTAGE-7970-RANK.jpg?resize=550%2C266 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/VANTAGE-7970-RANK-300x145.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The Radeon has less spikes and spends a bit less time at lower fps.\u00a0 However,\u00a0Jane Nash is a benchmark and not a game although it\u00a0uses a real scene for benching.\u00a0 Let&#8217;s move on to PC games and to mostly completely repeatable benchmarks to see if there are measurable performance differences in gaming between the GTX 680 and the HD 7970 at GHz edition clocks.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: World-in-Conflict: Soviet Assault--><\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\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\" title=\"wic\" alt=\"wic\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/wic_thumb-jpg.jpg?resize=244%2C154\" border=\"0\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><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. The expansion, <em>Soviet Assault<\/em>, was released in 2009. 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>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 fully 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 and our display&#8217; refresh rate is set to 120Hz in the Nvidia and AMD\u00a0control panels as well as in-game.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33141\" title=\"wic-Setting\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wic-Setting.jpg?resize=480%2C270\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wic-Setting.jpg?resize=480%2C270 1000w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wic-Setting-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33142\" title=\"wic-Setting1\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wic-Setting1.jpg?resize=480%2C270\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wic-Setting1.jpg?resize=480%2C270 1000w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wic-Setting1-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wic-Setting2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33143\" title=\"wic-Setting2\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wic-Setting2.jpg?resize=480%2C270\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wic-Setting2.jpg?resize=480%2C270 1000w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wic-Setting2-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s\u00a0check out the frame time chart for the <strong>GTX 680<\/strong>.\u00a0 In raw fps, it is slightly faster than the HD 7970 GHz edition:<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33280\" title=\"wic-680-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wic-680-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C265\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wic-680-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C265 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wic-680-ft-300x144.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Now the <strong>HD 7970 GHz<\/strong> edition frame time chart:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/WiC-7970-ft.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33308\" title=\"WiC-7970-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/WiC-7970-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C267\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/WiC-7970-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C267 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/WiC-7970-ft-300x145.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Both cards perform the runs very similarly with the Radeon registering smaller spikes on the chart.\u00a0 The actual gameplay in watching the benchmark\u00a0is very similar with a couple of extra\u00a0spikes at the beginning and near the end of the GeForce run.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the GTX 680 ranking:<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33279\" title=\"wic-680-RANK\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wic-680-RANK.jpg?resize=550%2C264\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wic-680-RANK.jpg?resize=550%2C264 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wic-680-RANK-300x144.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Now the HD 7970 ranking<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/WiC-7970-RANK.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33309\" title=\"WiC-7970-RANK\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/WiC-7970-RANK.jpg?resize=550%2C263\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/WiC-7970-RANK.jpg?resize=550%2C263 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/WiC-7970-RANK-300x143.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Average time: <\/strong>Average time across the entire run<\/li>\n<li><strong>1% time: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99% of frames<\/li>\n<li><strong>0.1%: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99.9% of frames<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/W-i-C.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33363\" title=\"W-i-C\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/W-i-C.jpg?resize=200%2C88\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Although there is some variation, the runs and gameplay on this older DX1o game are nearly identical.\u00a0 The built-in\u00a0benchmark is also generally more demanding on PC resources than the game itself.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: Crysis--><\/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\" alt=\"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\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Next we move on to <em>Crysis<\/em>, a science fiction first person shooter by Crytek. After all these years, 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.<\/p>\n<p><em>Crysis<\/em> uses DirectX10 for graphics rendering. CryEngine2 is the game engine used to power <em>Crysis<\/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. However, 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 4xAA for 1920&#215;1080 and we force 16xAF in the control panels.<\/p>\n<p>Here is <em>Crysis\u2019<\/em> Island Demo benchmark GPU. Lets&#8217;s look at the frame time chart for the\u00a0<strong>GTX\u00a0680<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-Crysis-ft.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33356\" title=\"GTX680-Crysis-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-Crysis-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C264\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-Crysis-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C264 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-Crysis-ft-300x144.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Crysis also appears to have been more optimized for frame rates and not as much for smoothness. Now check out the frame time chart for the <strong>HD 7970 GHz<\/strong> edition.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/7970-Crysis32-ft.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33360\" title=\"7970-Crysis32-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/7970-Crysis32-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C266\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/7970-Crysis32-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C266 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/7970-Crysis32-ft-300x145.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here is the\u00a0GTX 680 ranking:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-Crysis-rank.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33357\" title=\"GTX680-Crysis-rank\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-Crysis-rank.jpg?resize=550%2C267\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-Crysis-rank.jpg?resize=550%2C267 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-Crysis-rank-300x145.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now the HD 7970 ranking:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/7970-Crysis32-rank.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33361\" title=\"7970-Crysis32-rank\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/7970-Crysis32-rank.jpg?resize=550%2C266\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/7970-Crysis32-rank.jpg?resize=550%2C266 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/7970-Crysis32-rank-300x145.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Average time: <\/strong>Average time across the entire run<\/li>\n<li><strong>1% time: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99% of frames<\/li>\n<li><strong>0.1%: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99.9% of frames<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Crysis.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33364\" title=\"Crysis\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Crysis.jpg?resize=200%2C86\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The HD 7970 at GHz speeds is slightly faster, however the mimimums and average are higher; the amount of spikes are similar and neither runs are particularly smooth. Let&#8217;s move on to <em>Far Cry 2<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: Far Cry 2--><\/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\" alt=\"farcry2\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/farcry2_thumb-jpg.jpg?resize=244%2C154\" border=\"0\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a> <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. There is also a third game, Far Cry 3, which is also published by Ubisoft whose devs 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. One thing to especially note is <em>Far Cry 2\u2019s<\/em> very realistic fire propagation . First we test <em>Far Cry 2<\/em> benchmark at 1920&#215;1080 with AI enabled and we use the Ranch Long benchmark with ultra settings plus 8xAA.\u00a0 This is a change from our earlier benching in\u00a0Parts 1 and 2 where we used the\u00a0Ranch Short.\u00a0 The Frafs benchmark viewer cuts off the benchmark at 3,000 frames<\/p>\n<p>Here are the settings we chose:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/fc2-settings-long.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33342\" title=\"fc2-settings-long\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/fc2-settings-long.jpg?resize=480%2C278\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/fc2-settings-long.jpg?resize=480%2C278 800w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/fc2-settings-long-300x174.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/FC2-settings.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33156\" title=\"FC2-settings\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/FC2-settings.jpg?resize=480%2C277\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/FC2-settings.jpg?resize=480%2C277 800w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/FC2-settings-300x173.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s go right to the graphs and first check the\u00a0frame times using the GTX 680<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-FC2-ft.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33350\" title=\"GTX680-FC2-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-FC2-ft.jpg?resize=549%2C225\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now the frame time chart for the\u00a0HD 7970 GHz edition:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/fc2-long-ft.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33344\" title=\"fc2-long-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/fc2-long-ft.jpg?resize=549%2C299\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now check out the\u00a0ranking chart for the\u00a0GTX\u00a0680 SSD:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-FC2-rank.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33351\" title=\"GTX680-FC2-rank\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-FC2-rank.jpg?resize=549%2C222\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now the\u00a0Ranch Long\u00a0ranking with the\u00a0HD 7970 GHz edition:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/fc2-long-rank.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33345\" title=\"fc2-long-rank\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/fc2-long-rank.jpg?resize=549%2C301\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Average time: <\/strong>Average time across the entire run<\/li>\n<li><strong>1% time: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99% of frames<\/li>\n<li><strong>0.1%: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99.9% of frames<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/FC2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33365\" title=\"FC2\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/FC2.jpg?resize=200%2C88\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Neither of them are particularly smooth, however, the Radeon has higher spikes more often and you can often see the jitter.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s move to <em>Resident Evil 5<\/em> which appears to be a smooth high fps gaming experience even on a medium enthusiast PC.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: Resident Evil 5--><\/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\" alt=\"RE5DX10\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/re5dx10.jpg?resize=150%2C150\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a> <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.<\/p>\n<p>The developer&#8217;s emphasis is in optimizing high frame rates but they have implemented HDR, tone mapping, depth of field and motion blur into the game. Re5&#8217;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 DX9 and we ran the DX10 pathway.<\/p>\n<p>There are two benchmarks built-into <em>Resident Evil 5<\/em>. We chose the\u00a0variable benchmark this time.\u00a0 It is longer than the fixed benchmark that we ran in Parts 1 and 2 and it is more of a test of the graphics subsystem rather than the CPU.\u00a0 The benchmark is halted at 3000 frames which is over\u00a0two and one-half minutes.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RE5-settings1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33233\" title=\"RE5-settings\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RE5-settings1.jpg?resize=480%2C270\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RE5-settings1.jpg?resize=480%2C270 1000w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RE5-settings1-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RE5-settings-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33165\" title=\"RE5-settings-2\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RE5-settings-2.jpg?resize=480%2C270\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RE5-settings-2.jpg?resize=480%2C270 800w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RE5-settings-2-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>Here is the benchmark&#8217;s variable test run on the\u00a0GTX 680\u00a0with an average of\u00a0167.2 fps:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RE5-GTX680-results.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33352\" title=\"RE5-GTX680-results\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RE5-GTX680-results.jpg?resize=478%2C296\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We now see nearly the same score using the\u00a0HD 7970 at GHz edition speeds\u00a0&#8211; slightly faster at\u00a0168.3 fps.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33346\" title=\"RE5-results\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RE5-results.jpg?resize=481%2C264\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Now lets&#8217;s look at the frame time chart for the GTX 680.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-RE5-ft.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33353\" title=\"GTX680-RE5-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-RE5-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C264\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-RE5-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C264 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-RE5-ft-300x144.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now check out the frame time chart for the\u00a0HD 7970\u00a0GHz edition:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RE5-long-7970-ft.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33348\" title=\"RE5-long-7970-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RE5-long-7970-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C264\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RE5-long-7970-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C264 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RE5-long-7970-ft-300x144.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now the GTX 680 rank:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-RE5-RANK.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33354\" title=\"GTX680-RE5-RANK\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-RE5-RANK.jpg?resize=550%2C265\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-RE5-RANK.jpg?resize=550%2C265 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/GTX680-RE5-RANK-300x144.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now we see\u00a0the HD 7970 ranking.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33347\" title=\"RE5-long-7970-rank\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RE5-long-7970-rank.jpg?resize=550%2C264\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RE5-long-7970-rank.jpg?resize=550%2C264 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/RE5-long-7970-rank-300x144.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Average time: <\/strong>Average time across the entire run<\/li>\n<li><strong>1% time: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99% of frames<\/li>\n<li><strong>0.1%: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99.9% of frames<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/re5.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33366\" title=\"re5\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/re5.jpg?resize=200%2C87\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There\u00a0are more spikes with the GTX 680\u00a0although the apparent framerate\u00a0appears to be\u00a0nearly the same.\u00a0 The reason\u00a0jitter is not so apparent in this benchmark is because most of the spikes occur below 16.7ms.\u00a0\u00a0Let&#8217;s move on to the <em>STALKER, Call of Pripyat<\/em> benchmark.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: STALKER CoP--> <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\" alt=\"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\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a> <em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>STALKER, Call of Pripyat<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Call of Pripyat<\/em> became a new DX11 benchmark for us after GSC Game World released a another story expansion to the original Shadows of Chernobyl. It 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 and \u201ca living breathing world\u201d with highly developed NPC creature AI.<\/p>\n<p><em>Call of Pripyat <\/em>utilizes the XRAY 1.6 Engine using DirectX 11 and real-time GPU tesselation. It features 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>We are using the stand-alone benchmark by <em>Clear Sky\u2019<\/em>s creator and 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 DX11.0 with \u201cultra\u201d settings plus 2xAA, including applying edge-detect MSAA which chokes performance even further. 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 1920&#215;1080:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/CoP-settings-ssd.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33172\" title=\"CoP-settings-ssd\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/CoP-settings-ssd.png?resize=477%2C420\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/CoP-settings-ssd.png?resize=477%2C420 596w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/CoP-settings-ssd-300x264.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 477px) 100vw, 477px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s go right to the\u00a0charts and\u00a0run this benchmark on a\u00a0GTX 680 to see the frame time delivery:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-680-ft.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33317\" title=\"cop-680-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-680-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C262\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-680-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C262 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-680-ft-300x142.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here\u00a0are the HD 7970\u00a0at stock speeds\u00a0frametimes:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-7970-stock-ft.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33316\" title=\"cop-7970-stock--ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-7970-stock-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C248\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-7970-stock-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C248 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-7970-stock-ft-300x135.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here is the HD 7970 GHz edition frame time chart; it had higher frame rates but also larger spikes.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-7970-GHz-ft.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33318\" title=\"cop-7970-GHz-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-7970-GHz-ft.jpg?resize=548%2C304\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here is the GTX 680 OWC SSD ranking:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-680-rank.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33262\" title=\"cop-680-rank\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-680-rank.jpg?resize=547%2C261\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-680-rank.jpg?resize=547%2C261 623w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-680-rank-300x143.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 547px) 100vw, 547px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here is the HD 7970 at stock speeds ranking:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-7970-stock-rank.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33319\" title=\"cop-7970-stock-rank\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-7970-stock-rank.jpg?resize=550%2C249\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-7970-stock-rank.jpg?resize=550%2C249 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-7970-stock-rank-300x135.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here is the HD 7970 GHz ranking:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-7970-GHz-rank.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33320\" title=\"cop-7970-GHz-rank\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop-7970-GHz-rank.jpg?resize=549%2C283\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Average time: <\/strong>Average time across the entire run<\/li>\n<li><strong>1% time: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99% of frames<\/li>\n<li><strong>0.1%: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99.9% of frames<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33367\" title=\"cop\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cop.jpg?resize=200%2C87\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Both of these\u00a0video cards\u00a0run with noticeable jitter in sections of this benchmark.\u00a0 Overclocking to GHz edition speeds does not change much with the HD 7970.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: Aliens vs. Predator--> <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\" alt=\"AvP_SS\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/AvP_SS.jpg?resize=300%2C187\" 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. There are three campaigns in the game, one for each race or faction that form one main storyline although they differ in objectives depending on your choice of campaign.<\/p>\n<p><em>Alien vs Predators<\/em> DX11 benchmark is a stand alone bench that is only for DX11 cards. It is more demanding than actually playing the game generally. We use a benchmark tool at 1920&#215;1080 with maxed out settings plus 4xAA.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s go right to the graphs and first check the basic tests with the default benchmark score using the GTX 680 and the OWC SSD<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/avp-680-fps.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33261\" title=\"avp-680-fps\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/avp-680-fps.jpg?resize=480%2C303\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/avp-680-fps.jpg?resize=480%2C303 600w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/avp-680-fps-300x189.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Lets&#8217;s look at the frame time chart for the GTX 680.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33259\" title=\"avp-680-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/avp-680-ft.jpg?resize=549%2C324\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Now check out the frame time chart for the OWC HD 7970 at stock speeds:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33285\" title=\"avp-7970-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/avp-7970-ft.jpg?resize=549%2C268\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Below is the HD 7970 frame time chart at GHz speeds<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33323\" title=\"avp-7970-GHz-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/avp-7970-GHz-ft.jpg?resize=548%2C230\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/>Here is the\u00a0GTX 680\u00a0ranking:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/avp-680-result.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33260\" title=\"avp-680-result\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/avp-680-result.jpg?resize=549%2C329\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here is the HD 7970 at stock speed ranking,<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/avp-7970-stock-rank.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33324\" title=\"avp-7970-stock-rank\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/avp-7970-stock-rank.jpg?resize=549%2C260\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here is the HD 7970 at GHz speed ranking<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/avp-7970-GHz-rank.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33325\" title=\"avp-7970-GHz-rank\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/avp-7970-GHz-rank.jpg?resize=549%2C254\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Average time: <\/strong>Average time across the entire run<\/li>\n<li><strong>1% time: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99% of frames<\/li>\n<li><strong>0.1%: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99.9% of frames<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/avp.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33368\" title=\"avp\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/avp.jpg?resize=200%2C87\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There is really\u00a0little difference although the GeForce has a single spike that is 4ms higher than the Radeon&#8217;s.\u00a0 Overclocking the\u00a0HD 7970 to GHz edition\u00a0clocks brings some benefits besides increasing the framerate.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s on to a new game that is one of ABT&#8217;s newer benchmarks, <em>Sleeping Dogs<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: Sleeping Dogs--><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong><\/strong><strong>Sleeping Dogs<\/strong><strong> <\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><em>Sleeping Dogs<\/em> is a 2012 open world action-adventure video game developed by United Front Games in conjunction with Square Enix London Studios and published by Square Enix. Sleeping Dogs takes place in Hong Kong and focuses on an undercover operation to infiltrate the Triads.<\/p>\n<p>The game started development as an original title under &#8220;True Crime&#8221;, but as a result of high development budget and delays, it was canceled by Activision Blizzard in 2011. Six months later, it was announced that Square Enix had picked up the publishing rights to the game, but the game was renamed Sleeping Dogs. It sold over 1.5 million editions by September of last year and it looks to be a new franchise for Square Enix. It is a DX11 game that requires a high-end enthusiast PC to run well with all settings set to maximum even at 1920&#215;1080.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-settings.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33193\" title=\"SD-settings\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-settings.jpg?resize=480%2C270\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-settings.jpg?resize=480%2C270 800w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-settings-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Lets&#8217;s look at the frame time chart for the GTX 680.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33275\" title=\"SD-680-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-680-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C263\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-680-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C263 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-680-ft-300x143.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Now check out the frame time chart for the HD 7970 SSD:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-7970-ft.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33326\" title=\"SD-7970-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-7970-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C263\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-7970-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C263 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-7970-ft-300x143.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>These runs are actually pretty close with only 2ms difference in maximum\u00a0frame times spikes.\u00a0 The Radeon is faster in fps.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the GTX 680 ranking:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-680-RANK.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33276\" title=\"SD-680-RANK\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-680-RANK.jpg?resize=550%2C262\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-680-RANK.jpg?resize=550%2C262 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-680-RANK-300x142.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here is the HD 7970 GHz edition\u00a0ranking:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-7970-RANK.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33327\" title=\"SD-7970-RANK\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-7970-RANK.jpg?resize=550%2C265\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-7970-RANK.jpg?resize=550%2C265 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SD-7970-RANK-300x144.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Average time: <\/strong>Average time across the entire run<\/li>\n<li><strong>1% time: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99% of frames<\/li>\n<li><strong>0.1%: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99.9% of frames<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/sd.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33369\" title=\"sd\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/sd.jpg?resize=200%2C87\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Neither of these video cards suffer from much jitter in this benchmark.\u00a0 Let&#8217;s look at our latest benchmark, <em>Hitman: Absolution<\/em>.<strong><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: Hitman: Absolution--> <\/strong> <strong> <\/strong> <strong><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Hitman: Absolution<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><em> Hitman: Absolution<\/em> is an action-adventure stealth game developed by IO Interactive and published by Square Enix as the fifth entry in the Hitman series. <em>Hitman: Absolution<\/em> runs on IO Interactive&#8217;s own custom DX11 Glacier 2 game engine which was specifically built for it with an emphasis on rendering very dense crowds of up to 1200 individuals. It was released November, 2012 (week 47) and it is ABT&#8217;s latest DX11 benchmark. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Here are the settings we chose.<a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Hitman-settings-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33203\" title=\"Hitman-settings-2\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Hitman-settings-2.jpg?resize=484%2C255\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Hitman-settings.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33201\" title=\"Hitman-settings\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Hitman-settings.jpg?resize=480%2C298\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Hitman-settings.jpg?resize=480%2C298 800w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Hitman-settings-300x186.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here is the benchmark run with DOF.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33290\" title=\"HMA-dof\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/HMA-dof.jpg?resize=415%2C233\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/HMA-dof.jpg?resize=415%2C233 1920w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/HMA-dof-300x168.jpg 300w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/HMA-dof-1024x576.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 415px) 100vw, 415px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Here it is with DOF disabled.\u00a0 You gain about 2fps by disabling it either on a GTX 680 or a HD 7970 at 1920&#215;1080.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33289\" title=\"HMA-nodof\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/HMA-nodof.jpg?resize=415%2C233\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/HMA-nodof.jpg?resize=415%2C233 1920w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/HMA-nodof-300x168.jpg 300w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/HMA-nodof-1024x576.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 415px) 100vw, 415px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Lets&#8217;s look at the frame time chart for the GTX 680.\u00a0 It has a relatively smooth delivery of frames as confirmed by the chart below:<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33271\" title=\"hitman-680-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/hitman-680-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C265\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/hitman-680-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C265 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/hitman-680-ft-300x144.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The next chart really does convey the jitter experienced when playing <em>Hitman: Absolution<\/em> or running the benchmark even though the HD 7970 is faster than the GTX 680.\u00a0 Now the frame time chart for the HD 7970\u00a0at GHz edition speeds:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/hitman-7970-ft1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33288\" title=\"hitman-7970-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/hitman-7970-ft1.jpg?resize=550%2C266\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/hitman-7970-ft1.jpg?resize=550%2C266 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/hitman-7970-ft1-300x145.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here is the GTX 680 ranking:<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33272\" title=\"hitman-680-RANK\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/hitman-680-RANK.jpg?resize=550%2C262\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/hitman-680-RANK.jpg?resize=550%2C262 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/hitman-680-RANK-300x142.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Finally\u00a0the HD 7970 at GHz Edition speeds ranking.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/hitman-7970-GHz-rank.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33349\" title=\"hitman-7970-GHz-rank\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/hitman-7970-GHz-rank.jpg?resize=550%2C264\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/hitman-7970-GHz-rank.jpg?resize=550%2C264 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/hitman-7970-GHz-rank-300x144.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Average time: <\/strong>Average time across the entire run<\/li>\n<li><strong>1% time: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99% of frames<\/li>\n<li><strong>0.1%: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99.9% of frames<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/hma.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33370\" title=\"hma\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/hma.jpg?resize=200%2C87\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As evidenced by the frame times charts, there is a lot of difference in smoothness experienced by the gamer\u00a0between playing <em>Hitman: Absolution<\/em> on a GTX 680 versus playing it on a HD 7970.\u00a0 The benchmark may be more demanding than the game, but the jitter is still evident on the\u00a0Radeon.\u00a0 \u00a0Even though the HD 7970 is faster in raw framerates, the frame delivery is uneven and it detracts from gameplay.\u00a0\u00a0 We will continue to monitor AMD&#8217;s drivers in this particular case.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: Crysis 2--><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Crysis 2<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><em>Crysis 2<\/em> is a first-person shooter developed by Crytek, published by Electronic Arts and released in March 2011 for PC and console. <em>Crysis 2<\/em> is the DX11 sequel to the 2007 video game <em>Crysis<\/em>. It was the first game to showcase the CryEngine 3 game engine and the first to be released on consoles. It is a demanding game with excellent DX11 visuals which we ran at Ultra settings with the texture pack. <em>Crysis 3 <\/em>will be released this year. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Here are<\/span> the <em>Crysis 2<\/em> settings that we used.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Crysis2-resultsSSD.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33220\" title=\"Crysis2-resultsSSD\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Crysis2-resultsSSD.png?resize=478%2C244\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Crysis2-resultsSSD.png?resize=478%2C244 996w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Crysis2-resultsSSD-300x153.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 478px) 100vw, 478px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The GTX 680 frame time chart is again first:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33263\" title=\"crysis2-680-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/crysis2-680-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C288\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/crysis2-680-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C288 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/crysis2-680-ft-300x157.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Now the HD\u00a0 7970\u00a0GHz frame times.\u00a0 We see a many more and larger spikes in this benchmark.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/crysis2-7970-ft.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33330\" title=\"crysis2-7970-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/crysis2-7970-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C263\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/crysis2-7970-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C263 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/crysis2-7970-ft-300x143.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now the GTX 680 rank.<a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/crysis2-680-rank.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33264\" title=\"crysis2-680-rank\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/crysis2-680-rank.jpg?resize=550%2C265\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/crysis2-680-rank.jpg?resize=550%2C265 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/crysis2-680-rank-300x144.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now the HD 7970 GHz rank<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/crysis2-7970-rank.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33331\" title=\"crysis2-7970-rank\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/crysis2-7970-rank.jpg?resize=550%2C263\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/crysis2-7970-rank.jpg?resize=550%2C263 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/crysis2-7970-rank-300x143.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Average time: <\/strong>Average time across the entire run<\/li>\n<li><strong>1% time: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99% of frames<\/li>\n<li><strong>0.1%: <\/strong>Time it takes to draw 99.9% of frames<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/crysis2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33371\" title=\"crysis2\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/crysis2.jpg?resize=200%2C87\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There is quite a bit of difference in the evenness of frame rate delivery between the two cards.\u00a0 We will will\u00a0note <em>Crysis 2<\/em> for later to see if AMD makes any changes in their drivers. \u00a0Let&#8217;s look at our last benchmark using the Unigine 3.0 engine.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: Heaven 3.0--><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>Heaven 3.0 &#8211; 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\" alt=\"unigine-1.0\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/unigine-1-0.jpg?resize=150%2C150\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Finally we come to our last benchmark, Heaven 3.0, on the Unigine engine. It uses DX11 and heavy tessellation which will strain any graphics card. One DX11 game based on Unigine was released next year, <em>Oil Rush<\/em>. We use the setting for &#8220;extreme tessellation&#8221; and high shaders and we also set AF to 16x.<\/p>\n<p>Here is Heaven 3.0 benchmark with maxed settings, extreme tessellation and 4xAA at 1920&#215;1080:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-settings.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33211\" title=\"heaven-settings\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-settings.jpg?resize=360%2C294\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-settings.jpg?resize=360%2C294 600w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-settings-300x245.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It certainly appears that just as with the Jane Nash scene, the Heaven 3.0 benchmark has been optimized for frame rates and not smoothness.\u00a0 Let&#8217;s first\u00a0check out the frame time chart for the\u00a0GTX\u00a0680:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33269\" title=\"heaven-680-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-680-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C265\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-680-ft.jpg?resize=550%2C265 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-680-ft-300x144.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/>Now the HD 7970 GHz frame time chart:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-7970-ft1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33333\" title=\"heaven-7970-ft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-7970-ft1.jpg?resize=550%2C264\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-7970-ft1.jpg?resize=550%2C264 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-7970-ft1-300x144.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The HD 7970 GHz edition chart\u00a0shows more spikes and some with larger amplitude.\u00a0 Here is the\u00a0GTX 680 ranking:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-680-rank.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33270\" title=\"heaven-680-rank\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-680-rank.jpg?resize=550%2C262\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-680-rank.jpg?resize=550%2C262 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-680-rank-300x142.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Next is the HD\u00a07970 GHz edition\u00a0rank:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-7970-rank.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33334\" title=\"heaven-7970-rank\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-7970-rank.jpg?resize=550%2C267\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-7970-rank.jpg?resize=550%2C267 550w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heaven-7970-rank-300x145.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Unigine engine is used in one PC game\u00a0but the benchmark has been quite popular and well-optimized for by AMD and by Nvidia.\u00a0 The Radeon shows a bit\u00a0more jittery behavior in this benchmark than the GeForce and we shall again return to check it in future benching.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: Conclusion--><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>This has been quite an enjoyable look at the alternate ways to benchmark PC games for smoothness. We have learned that Fraps is a very useful tool for both framerate and frame time measurement and they can easily be charted using Excel or Frafs Benchmark Viewer.\u00a0 We have seen\u00a0few real differences between playing our PC games on a SSD or on a PC regarding smoothness although certainly game levels and saves generally load more quickly on the SSD, and the SSD will be quicker when the disk is accessed.\u00a0 We also note variences and spikes that randomly appear that can be disregarded after comparing many runs of the same benchmark.<\/p>\n<p>From just looking at eleven benchmarks including nine games,\u00a0we see\u00a0that the HD\u00a07970 at GHz edition clocks\u00a0has more difficulty providing even frame rates.\u00a0\u00a0 The GTX 680 does a better job of delivering a\u00a0smoother\u00a0experience in our benchmarks\u00a0despite the HD 7970 generally having higher fps (framerates).\u00a0\u00a0 So far, it appears that Scott Wasson of the Tech Report was correct that the Radeon&#8217;s GCN Catalyst drivers\u00a0have difficulty with smoothness, especially with some newer games.<\/p>\n<p>We are certainly not finished with our\u00a0frame time measurements.\u00a0 Stay tuned, there is a lot more coming up from us as we continue comparing our HD 7970 at GE clocks to the stock GTX 680\u00a0<em>with the rest of our 30-game benchmark suite<\/em>.\u00a0 Afterward, we shall present side-by-side video &#8211; including slow motion &#8211; for your examination.\u00a0 Evidently there are new WHQL drivers from AMD that are due tomorrow and we shall also\u00a0test them thoroughly.<\/p>\n<p>Happy Gaming!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mark Poppin<\/p>\n<p>ABT Senior Editor<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/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; 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