Mass Effect 2

Electronic Arts’ space-faring RPG is our Unreal Engine 3 game. While it doesn’t have a built in benchmark, it does let us force anti-aliasing through driver control panels, giving us a better idea of UE3’s performance at higher quality settings. Since we can’t use a recording/benchmark in ME2, we use FRAPS to record a short run.

Mass Effect 2 has always surprised us by just how strenuous it is, even though UE3 is intended to be flexible to reach a wide range of systems. Furthermore it doesn’t seem to benefit nearly as much from the GTX 580 as other games, with the performance advantage over the GTX 480 shrinking to around 13%. The ultimate victor ends up being the AMD multi-GPU setups, and farther above that still is the GTX 470 SLI.

DIRT 2 Wolfenstein
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  • AnandThenMan - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link

    "Relevent models only please, that have the same performance as the GTX580."

    So we can only compare cards that have the same performance. Exciting graphs that will make.
  • RobMel85 - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link

    I browsed through the 10 pages of comments and I don't think I saw anyone comment on the fact that the primary reason Nvidia corrected their heat problem was by blatantly copying ATi/Sapphire...not only did they plagiarize the goodies under the hood, but they look identical to AMD cards now! Our wonderful reviewer made the point, but no one else seemed to play on it.

    I say weak-sauce for Nvidia, considering the cheapest 580 on NewEgg is $557.86 shipped; the price exceeds what 480 was initially and the modded/OC'd editions aren't even out yet. It can't support more than 2 monitors by itself and is lacking in the audio department. Yes, it's faster than it's predecessor. Yes, they fixed the power/heat/noise issues, but when you can get similar, if not better, performance for $200 less from AMD with a 6850 CF setup...it seems like a no brainer.

    Sure ATi re-branded the new cards as the HD6000 series, but at least they aren't charging top $ for them. Yes, they are slower than the HD5000 series, but you can buy 2 6850s for less than the price of the 480, 580, 5970(even 5870 for some manufacturers) and see similar or better performance AND end up with the extra goodies the new cards support.

    I am looking forward to the release of the 69XX cards to see how well they will hold up against the 580. Are they going to be a worthy successor to the 5900, or will they continue the trend of being a significant threat in CrossFire at a reasonable price? Only time will tell...

    The real question is, what will happen when the 28nm HD7000 cards hit the market?
  • tomoyo - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link

    Actually the newegg prices are because they have a 10% coupon right now. I bet they'll go back to closer to normal after the coupon expires...assuming there's any stock.
  • Sihastru - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link

    Vapour chamber cooling technology was NOT invented by ATI/Sapphire. They are NOT the first to use it. Convergence Tech, the owner of the patent, even sued ATI/Sapphire/HP because of the infringement (basically means stolen technology).

    LOL.
  • RobMel85 - Sunday, November 14, 2010 - link

    Where within my post did I say it was invented by ATi/Sapphire...nowhere. The point that I was trying to make was that Nvidia copied the design that ATi/Sapphire had been using to trounce the Nvidia cards. The only reason they corrected their problems was by making their cards nearly identical to AMD/ATi...

    And to tomoyo, when I made that post there was no 10% coupon on newegg. They obviously added it because everyone else was selling them cheaper.
  • Belard - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link

    This is still a "400" series part as it's really technically more advanced than the 480.

    Does it have additional features? No.
    Is it faster, yes.

    But check out the advancement feature list.

    The 6800s, badly named and should have been 6700s, are slightly slower than the 5800s, but costs a lot less and actually does some things differently from the 5000 series. And sooner or later, there will be a whole family of 6000s.

    But here we are, about 6months later and theres a whole new "product line"?
  • dvijaydev46 - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link

    Is there any problem with Mediaespresso? My 5770 is faster with mediashow than mediaespresso. Can you check with mediashow to see if your findings are right?
  • Oxford Guy - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link

    The 480 beats the 580, except at 2560x1600. The difference is most dramatic at 1680x1050.

    http://techgage.com/reviews/nvidia/geforce_gtx_580...
    http://techgage.com/reviews/nvidia/geforce_gtx_580...
    http://techgage.com/reviews/nvidia/geforce_gtx_580...

    Why is that?
  • Sihastru - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link

    Proof that GF110 is not just a GF100 with all the shaders enabled.
  • Oxford Guy - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link

    This seems to me to be related to the slight shrinkage of the die. What was cut out? Is it responsible for the lower minimum frame rates in Unigine?

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