Battlefield 3

Its popularity aside, Battlefield 3 may be the most interesting game in our benchmark suite for a single reason: it’s the first AAA DX10+ game. It’s been 5 years since the launch of the first DX10 GPUs, and 3 whole process node shrinks later we’re finally to the point where games are using DX10’s functionality as a baseline rather than an addition. Not surprisingly BF3 is one of the best looking games in our suite, but as with past Battlefield games that beauty comes with a high performance cost.

The reduction in memory bandwidth and ROP throughput coming from the GTX 670 comes with roughly an 11% performance cost here, just about splitting the difference between the best and worst case scenarios.  This is important for the GTX 660 Ti since it means the card doesn’t surrender NVIDIA’s performance advantage in BF3. At 1920 with FXAA that means the GTX 660 Ti has a huge 30% performance lead over the 7950, and even the 7970 falls behind the GTX 660 Ti. The only real disappointment here is that 1920 with MSAA isn’t quite playable – 53fps means that framerates will bottom out in the mid-20s, which isn’t desirable.

Meanwhile the factory overclocked cards continue to up the ante, and ends up being another game that factory overclocks offer a decent improvement. Zotac tops the factory cards at 10%, followed by Gigabyte and EVGA. We’re once again seeing the impact of Zotac’s memory overclock, and how in memory bandwidth limited situations it’s more important than Gigabyte’s higher power target, though Gigabyte does come close.

Portal 2 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
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  • CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link

    I really didn't read your rant just skimmed your crybaby whine.
    So who cares you had an emotional blowout. Take some midol.
  • Galidou - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link

    Attacking and attacking again, you have so much respect it's almost admirable. Respect is the most important thing in the world, if you can't have some for even people you don't know, I'm sorry but you're missing on something here.
  • Galidou - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link

    I love it when people state their disrespectful opinion as a fact. Really drives their point home, yep.
  • CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link

    Take a look at your 7950 SKYRIM LOSS in triple monitor to the 660Ti and the 660Ti also beats the 7950 boost and the 7970 !

    5760x1080 4x aa 16x af

    ROFLMAO !
    http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/08/16/nvidia...

    YES, YOU DID YOUR "RESEARCH"... now you've lost every stupid argument you started. Stupid.
  • Galidou - Tuesday, September 4, 2012 - link

    http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GT...

    http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canu...

    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-66...

    http://www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx...

    Every review shows the 660ti under EVEN the 7870 and your review shows the 660 ti performing to the level of a 7970, flawed bullscrap. Your website has a problem, the same you have, it has a choosen side aka Fanboyism.

    I have both right now my wife uses the 660 ti in her pc for Guild wars 2 at 1080p and I bought the 7950 and overclocked both in my pc to test and the 7950 hands down tramples over the gtx 660 ti even both fully overclocked. I tested with skyrim on 3 monitor 5760*1080 and that's the only game I play.

    Now don't get MAD, I never said the gtx 660 ti is a bad card, it works wonders. But it gets trampled at 5760*1080 in skyrim end of the line...
  • TheJian - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link

    Actually I think they need to raise the clocks, and charge more, accepting the fact they will run hotter and use more watts. At least they can get more for the product, rather than having people saying you can OC them to 1100. Clock the normals at 900/1000 and the 7970@1050/1100 or so. Then charge more. Of course Nv is putting pricing pressure on them at the same time, but this move would allow them to be worth more out of the box so it wouldn't be as unreasonable. AT out of the box right now you can't charge more because they perform so poorly against what is being sold (and benchmarked) in the stores.

    With NV/Intel chewing them from both ends AMD isn't making money. But I think that's their fault with the mhz/pricing they're doing to themselves. They haven't ripped us off since the Athlon won for 3 years straight. Even then, they weren't getting real rich. Just making the profits they should have deserved. Check their 10yr profit summary and you'll see, they have lost 6bil. So I'd have to say they are NOT pricing/clocking their chips correctly, at least for this generation. These guys need to start making more money or they're going to be in bankruptcy by 2014 xmas.
    Last 12 months= sales 6.38bil = PROFITS= - 629 million! They aren't gouging us...They are losing their collective A$$es :(
    http://investing.money.msn.com/investments/stock-p...
    That's a LOSS of 629 million. Go back 10yrs its about a 6.x billion loss.

    While I hate the way Ryan did his review, AMD needs all the help they can get I guess... :) But Ryan needs to redo his recommendation (or lack of one) because he just looks like a buffoon when no monitors sell at 2560x1600 (30inchers? only 11, and less than this res), and steampowered.com shows less than 2% use this res also. He looks foolish at best not recommending based on 1920x1200 results which 98% of us use. He also needs to admit that Warhead is from 2008, and should have used Crysis 2 which is using an engine based on 27 games instead of CryEngine 2 from 2007 and only 7 games based on it. It's useless.
  • Galidou - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - link

    ''profits they should have deserved''

    You speak like if they had to overcome Intel and Nvidia's performance is easy and it's all their fault because they work bad. AMD got a wonderful team, you speak like you ever worked there and they don't do shit, they sit on their chair and that's the result of their work.

    Well it isn't, if you wanan speak like that about AMD, do it if you work there. No one is better placed to say if a company is really good or bad than the employees themselves. So just stop speaking like if designing these over 3 billions transistor things is as easy as saying ''hello, my name is Nvidia fanboy and AMD is crap''.
  • CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link

    AMD is crap. It's crap man, no getting around it.
  • Galidou - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link

    Too late Cerise, you lost all credibility by not being able to have an objective(it means it is undistorted by emotions) opinion and you rather proved you're way too much emotive to speak about video cards manufacturer.

    You too speak like if you ever worked at AMD and sure it is not the case, just visiting their headquarters would make your eyes bleed because in your world, this place is related to hell, with an ambient temperature averaging 200 degrees celsius, surrounded by walls of flesh, where torture is a common thing. And in the end, the demons poop video cards and force you to buy or kill your family.
  • CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link

    Your opinion - " i'm did my research ima getting my 7950 for my triple monitor SKYRIM..."

    Take a look at your 7950 SKYRIM LOSS in triple monitor to the 660Ti and the 660Ti also beats the 7950 boost and the 7970 !

    5760x1080 4x aa 16x af

    ROFLMAO !

    http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/08/16/nvidia...

    There isn't a palm big enough in the world to cover your face.

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