Batman: Arkham City

Batman: Arkham City is loosely based on Unreal Engine 3, while the DirectX 11 functionality was apparently developed in-house. With the addition of these features Batman is far more a GPU demanding game than its predecessor was, particularly with tessellation cranked up to high.

With Batman the 7950 continues to lead the GTX 580, though not by as great a distance as we’ve seen in other games. At 2560 it enjoys a 6% lead, while at 1920 that lead has been cut in half to 3%. Interestingly, Batman is the opposite of Shogun when comparing the 7950 to the 7970: the 7950 is closer than average here, indicating that Batman is limited by something derived from the core clock, likely the tessellator judging from what we saw in our 7970 review. As a result overclocking is also particularly effective here, with the XFX 7950 trailing the 7970 by only 2% thanks to its identical core and memory clocks.

Total War: Shogun 2 Portal 2
Comments Locked

259 Comments

View All Comments

  • chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link

    Well I'm not one to totally dismiss metrics like power consumption, thermals, noise but really those types of considerations are tertiary for anyone looking in this segment, especially when its very clear relative pricing is based on performance and performance only.

    Performance is primary, secondary considerations would be actual features (API, multi-mon, 3D, compute, etc.) and these fringe considerations like power, noise, heat a distant 3rd for anyone interested in this segment. It is more important for some people, but generally, performance is not the primary consideration for those people. Generally those who shop in this segment look at performance without compromise.

    In any case, Nvidia's strategy for their flagship ASICs have always been big die since the G80 and from that they've generally derived their top two desktop SKUs and X2 parts. But on top of that, they also put these ASICs in their highly lucrative professional parts like Tesla and Quadro. This is not unlike Intel's strategy with their highest-end CPUs (Westmere, SB-E) where the highest-end parts are shared between their high-end server and enthusiast desktop platform.

    AMD's strategy used to be "small die" after the R600 fiasco, where they would release a much smaller chip and still remain competitive through smaller process node and higher clock speeds with a halo X2 part made easier because of these smaller die sizes. But if you look at the die comparisons over the years, you can clearly see this small die strategy is getting away from them as well, as their chips have grown in size and power consumption through each generation.

    There was always internal conflict over this "small die" decision though, but it looks to me like the "big die" folks are back in favor at AMD GPU as they realize they will never be able to beat Nvidia with a smaller die and higher clocks alone and aren't going to fetch a higher asking price based on just good looks and more attractive thermals.
  • Arnir69 - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link

    I was looking forward to 7950 but the perf jump from my 580 is negligible so I'm going to pass, was expecting more from AMD, loved their 6950 in cfx which was awesome value. If I was still running those there would be even less reason to buy 79xx. I agree with Chizow's point: Nothing new or exciting here, now looking at Kepler to shakeup 2012's high end graphics scene.
  • chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link

    Thanks, I knew there were reasonable minds out there that felt similarly. Reading through the comments there are definitely more who feel the same way, which is assuring, because I really don't want to see a $750 flagship card from Nvidia.

    It just seems there's a few unreasonable folks out there who just want to ignore the obvious along with mountains of historical data points that tells us what AMD has done here with Tahiti pricing is unprecedented and frankly, quite shocking.
  • RussianSensation - Saturday, September 8, 2012 - link

    "If GK110 beats the 7970 by 20-25% and costs only $500, AMD execs will be jumping out of windows."

    GK104 $500 ended up losing the performance and price/performance crown to the HD7970 OC on air and on water. Looks like your prediction didn't come true this round.
  • HaydenOscar - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link

    "[partner cards]"

    In the middle of the first page. :)
  • prime2515103 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link

    "On January 20st..."

    Paragraph one, line two, sentence two.
  • jjj - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link

    with the 6970 starting at 300$,this one is a tough sell
  • casteve - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link

    looks like a cut/paste error creeped in. :)
  • casteve - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link

    sapphire pricing in the table needs to be updated, too.
  • Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link

    Please reload. It should already be fixed.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now