DIRT 2

Codemasters latest racing game marks the return of a racer to our benchmark suite. As the first DX11 racer, DIRT 2 makes pretty through use of the DX11’s tessellation abilities, not to mention being the best looking racer we have ever seen.

DIRT 2 is another game where the GTS 450 fits in comfortably between the 5750 and the 5770. And it performs well enough that even 1920x1200 with 4x anti-aliasing is an option, depending on how playable you find 40fps for a racing game. Overclocking is necessary to beat the 5770 however.

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  • just4U - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link

    Here in Canada I haven't really seen any 5850's priced under 300 yet and most are up in the 330 range.. The 1G 460 sit's in the 220-240 (no price drops for us) so it's a tempting alternative for many (I think)

    I also believe the 5850 will be a $200 card sometime in the near future. It's been selling way above it's suggested retail price (at launch) and when that happens it will be harder to consider the 460 as a viable alternative. I can't see it being sold at $150 (for the 1G variants) any time soon... so only fan's of Nvidia would consider it if it's priced in the 5850s range.
  • jabber - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link

    Big thing is...who actually bought a 5830?

    When it came out everyone said it was a pointless card so big whoop, Nvidia's 460 beats a card that should never have been released in the first place.

    Bit like saying "our car out performed the Ford Edsel!"

    If you want middle of the road performance you get a 5770, if you want a better boost you get the 5850.
  • just4U - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link

    It was only a pointless card because of it's price... Originally it should have been alot cheaper but supply and demand has inflated the prices of most of Amd's 5X lineup. Sitting near a $100 more then the 5770 is what made it a hard sell.
  • erple2 - Wednesday, September 15, 2010 - link

    Sure it did - the 768MB version fo the 460 now gave you 5830 performance for > 10% less money. To me, that makes it sound like the 5830 was now "obsoleted" by the 460 series. The 1 GB card was significantly faster at the same price point, and the 768 MB version was just as fast, but significantly cheaper. Both using less power, noise and heat.

    Isn't that essentially what defines "obsoletes"?
  • SandmanWN - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link

    Throughout the entire test suite the 5850 is within 4-6 frames of the 470. In two it makes it to 8 and 10 frames more. Given you need an extra 100W's on your power supply and the additional cost associated with that just to get that tiny fraction of output, the statement seems fanboyish. AT should be better than this.
  • just4U - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link

    What does the 470 have to do with this? Most of us all agree that the 465/470/480 are all heat scores with insane power draws.. the 460 addressed that and came in at a price point that hit a sweet spot.. bringing alot of the 470/480's strengths and none of it's weaknesses to the table. Only real complaint I've seen for the 460 is the mini hdmi.
  • IceDread - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 - link

    You are missing my point.

    By saying "and it struck beautifully" implies that you are cheering for the nvidia team. It would be a different thing if he wrote "and it struck hard" or something like that.
  • adonn78 - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link

    I read another review, damn my cheating heart. That stated the SLI scalling ont hese cards were impressive. You got 2 GTS 450 cards but no SLI?
  • Stuka87 - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link

    Er, every single benchmark shows the GTS-450 SLI scores. They are marked in green (like the regular GTS-450).
  • marraco - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link

    Other web sites show that the 450 is slower than the 250.

    It's strange when the 250 has 128 shaders, and the 450 has 192.... and the 450 has DDR5 vs DDR3 in the 250.

    It looks like the texture units bottleneck this design.

    Even more strange is that I could not find the 250 on this article charts.

    I don't see the 450 as price competitive with the radeons, except as SLI setup. It would be more valuable if 3-SLI way were allowed, and I guess that is not the case, because the photos shown only a single SLI connector.

    The SLI setups are unbeatable against the radeons price/performance. Maybe nVidia should design cheap, energy-efficient chips so a card manufacturer can pack 10 video chips on a single card.

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