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.

Despite the fact that it’s a $400 card, GTX 770 straddles the line between being a card best suited for 2560x1440, and a card best suited for 1920x1080. With GTX 780 and above we could get away with 2560 on the highest settings in most games, but with GTX 770 there will at times be compromises, either in quality/resolution, or dropping below 60fps.

In any case, DiRT: Showdown remains a troublesome title for NVIDIA. With its advanced lighting system on, GTX 770 trails the 7970 – let alone the 7970GE – at every resolution. For GTX 780 this wasn’t a problem, but for GTX 770 this means dropping below 60fps at 2560.

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  • Catalina588 - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link

    Folding@Home Big-Time Discrepancy in reviews
    Can anyone explain the material differences between this review's Compute Results for Folding@Home and the same FAHbench run at Tom's Hardware?
    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-77...

    Since FAHbench is self-contained -- load and go -- it's hard to figure how the results could be so different.
  • Ryan Smith - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link

    We're using a newer version of the benchmark, 1.2. FAHBench 1.2 has some very big performance optimizations that aren't in 1.1x.
  • kyuu - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link

    Not bad, but I think I'd still just find a 7970 with a good cooler on sale and overclock the crap out of it if I was looking to buy a high-end GPU.
  • Lt_dan - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link

    People should be looking at other websites. This review is showing scores that don't even make sense. The 7970, on bf3, has the same score as tomshardware's review of the 680, which was done over the year ago.
  • azixtgo - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link

    nobody cares. If this were ~$300 I'd seriously consider it. But getting a 7950 for ~$300 along with 4 quality games just makes me not care about a $400 card thats already out of my budget anyway. Nvidia always keeps their best just too high. At 400 its competing in value against a card with more to offer. They don't have the concept of winning by pricing right, but I guess they've never had to go there like AMD did.
  • Razorbak86 - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link

    Just because YOU don't care, doesn't mean that NOBODY cares. Please don't attempt to speak for the rest of us.
  • agentwax - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link

    Hmm recently built a system with gigabyte 670 and was looking to go sli in the near future. Upon reading this review I'm second guessing. Should I get a second 670 in a few months and go sli Or a 770 and go sli some time around christmas? Very happy with temps and noise on gigabyte wind force 670
  • thunderising - Friday, May 31, 2013 - link

    Now it's time for a HD 7970 GHZ GHZ MEGA GHZ edition with faster clocks and a new driver release for improved performance. Hehehe

    At least that would be better than a HD8950 = HD 7970 with faster clock speeds.
  • evolucion8 - Friday, May 31, 2013 - link

    That is not correct. The HD 7970 has a bigger bus, but being 28nm instead of 40nm like the HD 6970 means that the HD 7970 was able to achieve great performance gains by being 354mm2 compared to the HD 6970 which is around 389mm2
  • colonelclaw - Friday, May 31, 2013 - link

    Is anyone else as disappointed as I am about pricing all the way across the board with this new generation? As an owner of a GTX580 I was thinking it's about time for an upgrade, but all these high end cards look 100 $/£/€ overpriced to me. I wasn't happy about paying £450 for my 580 but there's no way in hell I'm prepared to pay £550 for the 780, and the 770 isn't a big enough upgrade to interest me.
    I'm more than a little suspicious that AMD and NVidia are agreeing on price points in order to make larger profits. Having just 2 companies in a market sector makes it pretty easy for them to do this.

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