Civilization V

Our final game, Civilization 5, gives us an interesting look at things that other RTSes cannot match, with a much weaker focus on shading in the game world, and a much greater focus on creating the geometry needed to bring such a world to life. In doing so it uses a slew of DirectX 11 technologies, including tessellation for said geometry, driver command lists for reducing CPU overhead, and compute shaders for on-the-fly texture decompression.

On our final test the 7970 sees a slight resurgence compared to the past few games, preventing NVIDIA from sweeping the whole back half of our tests. In any case it’s just enough to leave the GTX 670 trailing the 7970 by 3%, or about 2fps.

It’s interesting to note however that this is one of a couple of games that GTX 670 doesn’t do particularly well at compared to the GTX 500 series. At 2560 it has a 29% lead on the GTX 570, but that’s still the smallest lead out of any game we have tested. More than anything else it seems Civ V really needs more shader performance.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Compute
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  • Blackchild1101 - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link

    I'll take two please!
  • Ryan Smith - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link

    You'll get nothing and like it!

    (Sorry, was watching Caddyshack last weekend)
  • Wreckage - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link

    To think a few months ago you could have gotten a pair of 7970s for $1100.

    I'm betting there are a lot of sad AMD fans out there. Their viral marketing group in the forums is going to have a rough year for sure.
  • retrospooty - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link

    I doubt anyone that places happiness in their preferred companies products being #1 is all too happy to begin with ;)
  • RampantAndroid - Tuesday, May 15, 2012 - link

    Sure, but realizing that waiting a few months could have saved them serious $$$.

    Same probably goes for GTX680 owners.
  • CeriseCogburn - Monday, May 28, 2012 - link

    The partners of nVidia are going to be happy, because what comes out of the 680 and 670 is an auto overclock and an overclockable card, with locks on power increases, and therefore far, far less chance of anything burning out.

    Overclock to your hearts desire - you won't be burning these up while the amd cards will still be a housefire and cost the partners plenty to replace.

    nVidia's partners are very, very happy.
  • JlHADJOE - Saturday, July 21, 2012 - link

    They would if they have stocks invested though.

    /putting money where fanboy mouth is
  • Lazlo Panaflex - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link

    Waaaaaah waaaaah I can't post in the forums waaaaaaaah waaaaaaaaah

    btw, your mom says 'hi' & said to get back in the basement
  • wut - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link

    Oh no, YOUR MOM.
  • Lazlo Panaflex - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link

    bwahahahahahahahaha :D

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