The battle of the HTPC cards, Galaxy’s GT 520 vs. HD 6450 (GDDR5 vs. GDDR3)
3DMark11
3DMark11 is Futuremark’s brand new DX11-only benchmark. We are keeping track of the overall (for these tests, meaningless) scores and the framerates of the 4 graphics tests (which are more meaningful). First the basic tests results. Note that the GT 220 is limited to the DX10 pathway and will not run 3DMark11.
We note the rankings. Unfortunately, scores are completely meaningless when they are presented in this way. However, the next set of tests actually measures framerates of four short timedemos that focus on DX11 graphics performance.
We see an interesting lineup with the Galaxy sitting in between the GDDR5 and DDR3 versions of the HD 6450. Unfortunately for our purposes, 3DMark11 scores are just as meaningless as Vantage in an attempt to compare one video card’s performance to another – even in the same system. 3DMark11’s tests will work much better for our comparison of the two HD 6450s with the GDDR5 versus DDR3 section.
Let’s move on to PC games and to real world situations and we will create our “snapshot” of current performance of the new Galaxy GT 520 and the HIS HD 6450 to attempt to determine price to performance and how it fits in the current line up and especially how well they do against current now-discounted cards like GT 230/430/450. If the synthetics mean anything, GT 520 will be left in the dust. After all, we found the GT 430 an ideal HTPC card just suitable for light gaming in our review of it and a decent upgrade over the GT 230.