The Test

Starting with this review we are moving to the latest iteration of our GPU benchmark suite, which drops Battlefield 3 for a now far more stable Battlefield 4. We had been hoping to further augment the list to bring it to 10 games, but our other candidates from the late-fall/winter releases have proven unsuitable for benchmarking (e.g. Assassin’s Creed IV framerate cap), so we’re staying with 9 games for the time being.

For this review we’ve also updated all of our included AMD cards to account for AMD’s recently released Catalyst 14.1 beta driver, although the performance impact from it on our current test suite is minimal. We would note that we have encountered random stability issues with this driver that were not present on 13.12, resulting in a driver crash and a system hard-lock at various times.

CPU: Intel Core i7-4960X @ 4.2GHz
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Professional
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200i
Hard Disk: Samsung SSD 840 EVO (750GB)
Memory: G.Skill RipjawZ DDR3-1866 4 x 8GB (9-10-9-26)
Case: NZXT Phantom 630 Windowed Edition
Monitor: Asus PQ321
Video Cards: XFX Radeon R9 280X Double Dissipation
AMD Radeon HD 7950 Boost
AMD Radeon HD 7870
AMD Radeon HD 7850
AMD Radeon HD 7770
AMD Radeon R9 270X
HIS Radeon R9 270 IceQ X2
Asus Radeon R9 270 DirectCU II OC
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost
Video Drivers: NVIDIA Release 334.67 Beta
AMD Catalyst 14.1 Beta v1.6
OS: Windows 8.1 Pro
Meet The Asus Radeon R7 260 Metro: Last Light
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  • edzieba - Thursday, February 13, 2014 - link

    Are Anandtech considering a switch from average framerates to latency/frame-rating (either with Fraps or FCAT)?
  • Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 13, 2014 - link

    Frame pacing is an additional tool we run from time to time as is appropriate, but it's not something we'll use for every review. Frame pacing is largely influenced by drivers and hardware, neither of which shift much on a review-by-review basis. So it's primarily reserved for multi-GPU articles and new architectures as appropriate.

    And especially in the case of single-GPU setups, there's not much to look at. None of these cards has trouble delivering frames at a reasonably smooth pace.

    http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU14/873
  • HisDivineOrder - Thursday, February 13, 2014 - link

    Yeah, that's what you guys said before the whole frame latency thing broke, too. It's a shame you aren't doing proper monitoring to catch it the first time and are setting up a scenario where it flies under the radar yet again the next time AMD decides to get lax on making drivers.

    Then again, this article is in red, right? AMD News is right next to it. Hell, even the comment button is red. I'm guessing the AMD overlords wouldn't like it very much if you were constantly harping on something they dropped the ball on so completely that their competitor had to slowly explain to them how to even see the problem and then how to fix it.
  • gdansk - Thursday, February 13, 2014 - link

    It's a shame. I'm with your argument. AnandTech should try to include as many indicative benchmarks as possible. At times FCAT is indicative.

    But sadly, calling someone a shill with only coincidence is no better than libel. You have made an unsubstantiated allegation. It is decidedly unscientific to insult one's professional integrity with mere coincidental insinuations and no evidence. Why would you do that?
  • Death666Angel - Thursday, February 13, 2014 - link

    So they are in the pocket of nVidia, Intel, AMD, Android AND Apple? Wow, those companies must really be idiots then.
  • Gigaplex - Thursday, February 13, 2014 - link

    I don't know where you got all the other brands from, but technically yes Ars is in the pockets of AMD. See http://www.anandtech.com/portal/amd - this is sponsored by AMD.
  • Gigaplex - Thursday, February 13, 2014 - link

    Bah, AnandTech, not Ars
  • Death666Angel - Thursday, February 13, 2014 - link

    I know _that_. But he is clearly insinuating that their opinions are bought by AMD. And since products from all those companies I listed (who are all competitors) regularly get recommendations, and Anandtech gets then accused of being paid shills, I find it funny that anyone thinks that is true. If they are bought by AMD as suggested, how come they don't come up with a benchmark track that makes AMD CPUs shine? Or how come they slammed the R9 so much for the noise? It's all pretty silly.
  • nader_21007 - Friday, February 14, 2014 - link

    It seems that it hurts you how come this site is not biased and doesn't admire every thing Nvidia, like other sites? well you can go read Tom's Hardware, WCCFtech and every other hardware site, and be sure they will satisfy your needs.
  • zodiacsoulmate - Friday, February 14, 2014 - link

    Yea, it's like trying to compare samsung to apple again, sure you can say there is no way to compare which one is better hardware considered, the user experience is just not on pair...

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