DiRT 3

For racing games our racer of choice continues to be DiRT, which is now in its 3rd iteration. Codemasters uses the same EGO engine between its DiRT, F1, and GRID series, so the performance of EGO has been relevant for a number of racing games over the years.

With DiRT 3 AMD finally turns the tables on themselves, leading to the 7770 taking a lead over the 6850. With an 8% lead this is the first win for the 7770, and a surprising one at that. Throw in a factory overclock like the BESDD and even the 6870 can be surpassed. In fact the only real bad news for the 7770 here is that while AMD is beating themselves, it’s a competition that NVIDIA normally wins, leading to the 7770 still trailing the 1GB GTX 460 and sitting well behind the GTX 560. The interplay of three different architectures here means that no one is necessarily going to be the winner all of the time.

As for the 7750, the 7770 gap only continues to grow. Now the 7770 is 32% ahead of the 7750, indicating just how important shader and texturing performance is in this game. The end result is that the 7750 still slightly trails the 5770.

As good as overall DiRT 3 performance is, the minimum framerates look even better. The 7750 finally edges out the 5770, meanwhile the 7770 nearly ties the 6870.

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  • faizoff - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link

    I thought the 7770 would outperform the 6850 at least. Great review.
  • sigmatau - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link

    For AMD cards, you look at the second number to indicate performance. An 8 series card like in the 6850 usualy performs as well or slightly better than a next generation 7 series card like the 7770.

    The 3rd number also indicates performance, but not nearly as much as the second number.
  • TerdFerguson - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link

    er, not really. A 58xx is faster than a 68xx.
  • sigmatau - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link

    The 68xx series introduced an anomaly in the formula. But generaly what I stated is true.
  • CeriseCogburn - Saturday, March 10, 2012 - link

    The anomaly here is the NVIDIA Gtx460 SMOKES the 7770 on everything, in every test, and costs 33% less.
    I see the crazed fan base cannot bring themselves to say it.
    I'll say it - 19 pages unsaid, over a long time.
    THE NVIDIA GTX460 SMOKES THIS CARD RO DEATH, AND THERE'S MORE OF THOSE ON NEWEGG FOR LESS MONEY THAN THE 7770.
  • Spunjji - Thursday, June 21, 2012 - link

    My word you are tiresome.
  • nissangtr786 - Thursday, July 5, 2012 - link

    Using your logic a gtx 580 smoke the gtx 460.

    The reason why 7770 costs a bit is because its new technology, power consumption goes down quite a bit. Compare the card to same power consumption of new generation card maybe a 7870 and the 7870 will smoke the gtx 460.

    perferformance per watt 7770m smokes the gtx 460.
  • lambchowder - Thursday, November 1, 2012 - link

    you seriously need to stop posting. everything you post comes off as rabid nvidia fanatic, because you evidently are one, and you seem to camp outside these benchmarks to say the same thing everytime!! "this thing SMOKES~~~~!! the 7770!!! thats all i look at are the frame rates!!! i dont take anything else into consideration cause im an nvidia superfan"
  • Beararam1 - Thursday, February 16, 2012 - link

    Really? I thought the 6870>5850. No?
  • CeriseCogburn - Saturday, March 10, 2012 - link

    This 7k series needs some www.verdetrol.com
    --
    LOL - How low can you go amd ?
    Seems like more firings and cullings are in the works - or perhaps they already dragged the cat in and are now stuck with perverts.

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