The battle of the HTPC cards, Galaxy’s GT 520 vs. HD 6450 (GDDR5 vs. GDDR3)
Test Configuration
Test Configuration – Hardware
- Intel Core i7 920-reference 2.66 GHz and overclocked to 3.8 GHz; 21x multiplier for 3.97 GHz, Turbo is on.
- Gigabyte EX58-UD3R (Intel X58 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 2.0 specification; CrossFire/SLI 16x+16x).
- 6 GB OCZ DDR3 PC1800 Kingston RAM (3×2 GB, tri-channel at PC1600 speeds; 2×2 GB supplied by Kingston)
- Galaxy GT 520 (1GB reference clocks 810/1620MHz and overclocked to 1000/1650MHz), supplied by Galaxy
- GeForce GTS 450 (1GB reference clocks 675/1800MHz) supplied by Galaxy
- GeForce GT 430, 1.0 GB reference design and clocks (700/1600 MHz DDR3), supplied by Nvidia.
- GeForce GTX 420, 1.0 GB reference design and clocks (625/1440 MHz), supplied by Galaxy/Nvidia
- HIS Radeon HD 6450 (1GB DDR3 625/500 and overclocked to 725/880MHz)
- HIS Radeon HD 6450 (512MB GDDR5 750/900 MHz) supplied by AMD
- AMD Radeon HD 6670 (1GB 650/1000) supplied by AMD
- AMD Radeon HD 6570 (1GB, reference clocks 650/900MHz), supplied by AMD
- Onboard Realtek Audio
- 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
- Thermaltake ToughPower 775 W power supply unit supplied by Thermaltake
- Thermaltake Element G Case supplied by Thermaltake
- Noctua NH-U12P SE2 CPU cooler, supplied by Noctua
- Philips DVD SATA writer
- HP LP3065 2560×1600 thirty inch LCD
Test Configuration – Software
- ATi Catalyst 11.4 driver for all Radeons; highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver; surface performance optimizations are off; “use applications settings” are checked
- NVIDIA GeForce WHQL driver 270.61 for all GTXes. High Quality
- Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates
- DirectX July/November 2010
- All games are patched to their latest versions.
- vsync is forced off in the control panel.
- Varying AA enabled as noted in games and “forced” in Catalyst Control Center for UT3 ; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied; 16xAF forced in control panel for Crysis & Warhead
- All results show average, minimum and maximum frame rates except as noted.
- Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
- 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.
The Benchmarks
- Vantage
- 3DMark11
- F.E.A.R.
- X3:Terran Conflict
- Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
- Call of Duty 4
- Unreal Tournament 3
- Batman: Arkham Asylum
- Grand Theft Auto IV
- Serious Sam, Second Encounter HD (2010)
- Wolfenstein
- Left 4 Dead
- Mafia II
- Call of Juarez
- Crysis
- Warhead
- Lost Planet
- World in Conflict
- Far Cry 2
- Just Cause 2
- H.A.W.X.
- Resident Evil 5
- Alien vs. Predator
- STALKER, Call of Pripyat
- Dirt 2
- F1 2010
- Metro 2033
- Lost Planet 2
- H.A.W.X. 2
- Heaven 2
We have got an interesting project going. Let’s check our results to see if the new GT 520 delivers all that Nvidia promises for DX11 entry-level gaming. The GT 520 is directly compared with its predecessor the GT 220, the GT 430 and the GTs 450 as well as the HIS HD 6450-1GBB DDR3, the HD 6670 and DD 6570 under each game’s regular chart. All of the overclocked GT 520 and HD 6450 512MB GDDR5 results are located in the Performance summary at the end of the individual game section.