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.

Interestingly enough it looks like the GTX 690 has met its match on of all things DiRT 3. At 5760 the GTX 690 finally falls behind the GTX 680 SLI to a noticeable degree, trailing NVIDIA’s dual video card setup by 8%. We’re not entirely sure what’s going on that keeps the GTX 690 from boosting so much here, but whatever it is takes its toll at these high resolutions. Meanwhile at 2560 things look much better for the GTX 690 with it once again trailing the GTX 680 SLI by only 3%.

Meanwhile compared to AMD’s 7970CF, NVIDIA still has some trouble pulling away. At 5760 the GTX 690 and 7970CF are virtually tied; it takes a drop to 2560 for the GTX 690 to open up and take any kind of real lead.

Our minimum framerates in DiRT 3 reflect our averages, which in turn reflects the fact that DiRT 3 has rather consistent performance.

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  • tviceman - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link

    Last page: Based on our benchmarks we’re looking at 95% of the performance of the GTX "580 SLI" - 580 SLI should read 680 SLI.
  • UltraTech79 - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link

    I wish there was a separate button to point out this sort of thing so they could silently correct it. Dont get me wrong, I think its good to have accurate information, just clutters things up a bit.
  • Ryan Smith - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link

    My inbox is always open.=)
  • mediaconvert - Friday, May 4, 2012 - link

    p 2

    While the basic design of the GTX 690 resembles the GTX 590, NVIDIA has replaced virtually every bit "with plastic with metal" for aesthetic/perceptual purposes.

    surely "with plastic with metal" to "of plastic with metal"

    still a good review
  • rockqc - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link

    1st line on page 2 "Much like the GTX 680 launch and the GTX 590 before it, the first generation the first generation of GTX 690 cards are reference boards being built by NVIDIA"

    First generation has been written twice.
  • Torrijos - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link

    The first benchmark plotted (Crysis) has a resolution of 5760 x 1200, this has to be wrong!
  • tipoo - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link

    It's crazy but right. He tested that resolution on multiple games.
  • CeriseCogburn - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link

    If you look at accumulated benchmarks across the web, the 680 Nvidia cards beat the 7970 amd cards by a much higher percentage in 1920x1080 (17.61% ahead) than they do in 1920x1200 (10.14% ahead).
    This means anand reviews always tests in 1920x1200 to give the amd cards a prettier looking review, instead of testing in 1920x1080 (the most commonly available resolution at 1920x that they could easily set their 1920x1200 monitors to).
    Hence their tests here at anand are likely also amd favorably biased in higher resolutions.
    http://translate.google.pl/translate?hl=pl&sl=...
  • A5 - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link

    It's not like 19x12 is an uncommon or unavailable resolution. Maybe Nvidia should improve their 19x12 performance?
  • crimson117 - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link

    Sadly, it is a very uncommon resolution for new monitors. Almost every 22-24" monitor your buy today is 1080p instead of 1200p. :(

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