Battlefield 3

Our major multiplayer action game of our benchmark suite is Battlefield 3, DICE’s 2011 multiplayer military shooter. Its ability to pose a significant challenge to GPUs has been dulled some by time and drivers, but it’s still a challenge if you want to hit the highest settings at the highest resolutions at the highest anti-aliasing levels. Furthermore while we can crack 60fps in single player mode, our rule of thumb here is that multiplayer framerates will dip to half our single player framerates, so hitting high framerates here may not be high enough.

Battlefield 3 has continued to favor NVIDIA parts and the GTX 760 is no exception. The gap at 1080p with MSAA is 20%, one of the largest leads for the GTX 760 out of all of our games. Even the full-fledged 7970 is still slower than the GTX 760 here by a few frames per second.

Meanwhile it’s interesting to note that this is another title that really favors the ROP performance advantage of the GTX 760, with the GTX 760 once more shooting well ahead of the GTX 660 Ti, coming within a few frames per second of the GTX 670. How close these cards depends on the game – as we’ve seen it’s anywhere between equal to a GTX 660 Ti to equal to a GTX 670 – but this is a fairly typical example of the GTX 760 giving the much more expensive GTX 670 a run for its money.

Finally, looking at our last generation cards the GTX 760 once again cements its position as a solid generational upgrade. At 1080p without MSAA we’re looking at performance 80% better than a GTX 560 Ti, and more than doubling the 6870 and GTX 460 1GB.

Far Cry 3 Civilization V
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  • kennyG - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link

    I for one was not happy with the out come of the 760 tested . I wanted Nvidia to totally take the 670 and enhance it and make a 760..Do the same process like they did with the 680 to 770. I really wanted to buy this card... Waiting for this one and I'm pisssed.
  • Laststop311 - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link

    I wonder how 2 of these(500) in sli compared to the GTX 780 single gpu (650)
  • xTRICKYxx - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link

    About Titan/GTX 690 levels.
  • Ribozyme - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link

    Ryan, could you please elaborate why the 760 draws considerably more power than a 670 while still being slower? Is this because a lower clocked 670 is compared to a pretty high clocked 760 in comparison? What would the situation be if you compared a 760 to a 670 clock per clock? And would I be able to power this with a be quiet straight power e9 400w + 3770k folding 24/7 ?
    And last question, are your power consumption values measured from the socket with a watt meter or with ampere meter on each cable and then added up?
  • Ryan Smith - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link

    The biggest difference between the 760 and 670 is that the 760 has GPU Boost 2.0, which is a significantly different method of adjusting clockspeeds around temperature and power limits. The 670 had a TDP of 170W, but in practice its power target (a concept that doesn't exist with Boost 2.0) was below that. Whereas the GTX 760, if not constrained by temperatures, will get closer to its 170W TDP more frequently.

    The other difference is as you note: clockspeeds. The GTX 760 has fewer SMXes, but it operates at a higher clockspeed and with higher voltages (1.2v vs. 1.175v). That really eats up power at the highest boost bins. The 760 is essentially a little less wide and a little deeper than 670; clock for clock the 670 is going to be faster (but it won't be able to clock quite as high).

    As for your PSU question, I'm afraid I can't answer that in any confidence. Based on specs I'd think that would work, but I don't know anything about that PSU.

    Finally, power consumption is measured at the wall.
  • JimmiG - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link

    Many non-reference GTX 670's boost higher, though. For example, my KFA² GTX 670 almost always boosts to 1,189 MHz, sometimes higher. If you can find a cheap, non-reference GTX 670 before they go out of stock, it might be a better deal.
  • vision33r - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link

    The last 3 years we saw really no innovation in the desktop GPU market. If you bought a HD 5870, you can still rock that card today in every game without any issue. We will see most of today's card get tossed when 4k monitors become a reality. Even SLI/CF top end cards today will score sub 30fps when games are played natively at 4k res.
  • Kutark - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link

    Ive been looking for the right price point to upgrade my GTX570, especially with BS4 coming out soon. I was hoping this would be it, but it looks like its really not enough of a jump to justify $250, especially when i could put that money towards a PS4 for some of the console games that wont be ported to PC. Any opinions otherwise?
  • Kutark - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link

    Haha, meant to say BF4, but yah, you get what i meant lol.
  • mapesdhs - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link


    :D That was a good one. :)

    I suppose it depends on what you want from an upgrade. Are you looking for at
    least a 2X speedup? If so then yes, atm you'd probably have to aim higher than
    a 760. Indeed, I have a hunch that 570 SLI might match a 770 (that's an option I
    suppose, get a 2nd used 570 for the interim).

    Ian.

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