BattleForge: DX10

Up next is BattleForge, Electronic Arts’ free to play online RTS. As far as RTSes go this game can be quite demanding, and this is without the game’s DX11 features.

With no more than 1fps separating the GTX 570 and GTX 480 at all times, this is as close as a match can come. The 570 and 480 are interchangeable here, driving home the point that the GTX 570 will fill the role of a cooler, quieter, and cheaper GTX 480. Furthermore compared to the GTX 470 we’re now a good 25% ahead, well exceeding the memory bandwidth advantage and approaching the theoretical shader performance advantage.

As for the competition, the Radeon 5870 is no threat to the GTX 570. The only real threat is the SLI/CF cards, which enjoy a notable performance advantage but nothing like what we saw with Crysis.

Crysis: Warhead Metro 2033
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  • ilkhan - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    I love my HDMI connection. It falls out of my monitor about once a month and I have to flip the screen around to plug it back in. Thanks TV industry!
  • Mr Perfect - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    It is somewhat disappointing. People with existing screens probably don't care, and the cheap TN screens still pimp the DVI interface, but all of the high end IPS panel displays include either HDMI, DP or both. Why wouldn't a high end video card have the matching outputs?
  • EnzoFX - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    High-End gaming card is probably for serious gamers, which should probably go with TN as they are the best against input lag =P.
  • Mr Perfect - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    Input lag depends on the screen's controller, you're thinking pixel response time. Yes, TN is certainly faster then IPS for that. I still wouldn't get a TN though, the IPS isn't far enough behind in response time to negate the picture quality improvement.
  • MrSpadge - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    Agreed. The pixel response time of my eIPS is certainly good enough to be of absolutely no factor. The image quality, on the other hand, is worth every cent.

    MrS
  • DanNeely - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    Due to the rarity of HDMI 1.4 devices (needed to go above 1920x1200) replacing a DVI port with an HDMI port would result in a loss of capability. This is aggravated by the fact that due to their stickerprice 30" monitors have a much longer lifetime than 1080p displays and owners who would get even more outraged as being told they had to replace their screens to use a new GPU. MiniDVI isn't an option either because it's singlelink and has the same 1920x1200 cap as HDMI 1.3.

    Unfortunately there isn't room for anything except a single miniHDMI/miniDP port to the side of 2 DVI's, installing it on the top half of a double height card like ATI has done cuts into the cards exhaust airflow and hurts cooling. With the 5xx series still limited to 2 outputs that's not a good tradeoff, and HDMI is much more ubiquitous.

    The fiasco with DP-DVI adapters and the 5xxx series cards doesn't exactly make them an appealing option either to consumers.
  • Mr Perfect - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 - link

    That makes good sense too, you certainty wouldn't want to drop an existing port to add DP. I guess it really comes down to that cooling vs port selection problem.

    I wonder why ATI stacked the DVI ports? Those are the largest ports out of the three and so block the most ventilation. If you could stack a mini-DP over the mini HDMI, it would be a pretty small penalty. It might even be possible to mount the mini ports on edge instead of horizontally to keep them all on one slot.
  • BathroomFeeling - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    "...Whereas the GTX 580 took a two-tiered approach on raising the bar on GPU performance while simultaneously reducing power consumption, the GeForce GTX 470 takes a much more single-tracked approach. It is for all intents and purposes the new GTX 480, offering gaming performance..."
  • Lonyo - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    Any comments on how many will be available? In the UK sites are expecting cards on the 9th~11th December, so not a hard launch there.
    Newegg seems to only have limited stock.

    Not to mention an almost complete lack of UK availability of GTX580s, and minimal models and quantities on offer from US sites (Newegg).
  • Kef71 - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    Or maybe they are a nvidia "feature" only?

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