DiRT: Showdown

As always, starting off our benchmark collection is our racing benchmark, DiRT: Showdown. DiRT: Showdown is based on the latest iteration of Codemasters’ EGO engine, which has continually evolved over the years to add more advanced rendering features. It was one of the first games to implement tessellation, and also one of the first games to implement a DirectCompute based forward-rendering compatible lighting system. At the same time as Codemasters is by far the most prevalent PC racing developers, it’s also a good proxy for some of the other racing games on the market like F1 and GRID.

Though NVIDIA’s goal is to surpass the 7950 – something they generally accomplish – in some titles AMD’s parts still hold such an innate advantage as to hold off the GTX 760, and this is one such case. Performance of the GTX 760 trails the 7950 by 18% here, with the GTX 760 falling just short of averaging 60fps at 1920 with advanced lighting. But as we’ve seen with other reviews, this is the only game where AMD holds an advantage quite this great.

It’s interesting to note though that this is also one of the only games the GTX 760 struggles to beat the GTX 660 Ti, owing to the heavy shader load placed on these cards by the advanced lighting system. The two are essentially tied with that lighting turned off, while the GTX 760 takes a small lead with it off.

The Last of the 700 Series & The Test Total War 2: Shogun
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  • Impulses - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link

    Hmm, it took a while but it seems like I finally have a suitable upgrade path from my CF 6950x2 (unlocked)... I paid about $225 for each of those and I just haven't seen a card (or a pair of cards) that would be a substantial enough upgrade for under $500. SLI GTX 760 is more than I was hoping for, when the 770 came in at $400 I almost expected this to come in at $300+.

    Now, the question is, will I be bottlenecking myself under future games with 2GB GTX 760s in SLI for gaming at 5760x1200 or 3600x1920? My 6950s have held up well but I've been playing a lot of older games too... Should I be looking at a single GTX 780 instead or something?
  • mapesdhs - Monday, July 1, 2013 - link


    As is so often the case, that depends on the games you're playing, and whether you're
    using any mods, etc. Heavily modded Skyrim definitely needs more than 2GB even with
    one high-res display. Heavy AA also needs more VRAM. Personally, if I was going for
    multi-screen gaming, I'd want more than 2GB. Others have mentioned a 4GB 760, so
    maybe that's an option? Or of course there are the various 3GB AMD cards, though I
    wouldn't bother with CF until AMD's new drivers are out.

    Some advantages of getting a single 780: better upgrade path in the future, less
    power consumption, no SLI issues. The down side of course is the cost.

    Ian.
  • hasseb64 - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link

    headline:
    "The new Enthusiast kepler"
    Enthusiast?
    Ever heard about "Main stream"?
    I have nothing more to say!
  • tynopik - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link

    typo: 'less than idea for an action game' -> ideal

    Far Cry 3 page
  • sdgvtree - Saturday, June 29, 2013 - link

    nput this URL:
    ==== [www.shun-happlymall.com] ====
    you can find many cheap and fashion stuff
  • dineshramdin - Tuesday, July 2, 2013 - link


    The most attractive feature is the 256 bit bus that would enable you a huge bandwidth and you can deal with any sort of resolutions if necessary. and for laptop accessories and many more, check this out- http://tinyurl.com/neqrzr9
  • Buddhaz Priest - Friday, July 12, 2013 - link

    Wow. initially I kind of panned the GTX 770 because I didn't feel it was enough of a jump from the 670 for the price difference. Seemed like it wasn't a big hardware jump and that you were paying for the software goodies like GPU Boost 2.0, but after seeing the number difference between the 670 and 770 I gotta say I'm pleasantly surprised with how well the 770 performs.
  • BadThad - Friday, June 13, 2014 - link

    Let's see, no mention of the R270? You can find them for $150-175 (cheaper than the GTX) and they are virtually the same as far as performance.
  • j18kuhn - Thursday, January 22, 2015 - link

    I got one at best buy for my first pc for 210 and now I'm waiting on the rest of my parts from amazon
  • Artas1984 - Sunday, August 16, 2015 - link

    Seeing how the new GTX960 is just slightly ahead of GTX760, i guess buying the GTX760 was a smart choice. The gap between GTX970 and GTX960 is MASSIVE.

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