HEXUS.bang4buck, temps, overclocking
In a rough-and-ready assessment of the cards' bang per buck, we've aggregated the 1,920x1,200 framerates for the four games, normalised them* and taken account of the cards' prices.
But there are more provisos than we'd care to shake a stick at. We could have chosen four different games, the cards' prices could have been derived from other sources and pricing tends to fluctuate daily.
Consequently, the table and graph below highlight a metric that should only be used as a yardstick for evaluating comparative performance with price factored in. Other architectural benefits are not covered, obviously.
| Graphics cards | Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 TOXIC 512MB | Force3D HD 4870 512MB | HIS HD 4850 IceQ4 TurboX 512MB | BFG GTX 260 MAXCORE OC 896MB | ZOTAC GTX 260 896MB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actual aggregate marks at 1,920x1,200 | 273.73 | 258.09 | 226.18 | 290.16 | 247.85 |
| Aggregate marks, normalised*, at 1,920x1,200 | 245.8 | 235.17 | 213.22 | 265.08 | 239.78 |
| Current pricing, including VAT | £210 | £175 |
£135 | £257 | £190 |
| HEXUS.bang4buck score at 1,920x1,200 | 1.17 |
1.34 |
1.58 |
1.03 | 1.26 |
| Acceptable frame rate (av. 60fps) at 1,920x1,200 | No (COH:OF) | No (COH:OF) | No (COH:OF, COD4) | Yes | No (COH:OF, COD 4, GRID) |
* the normalisation refers to taking playable frame rate into account.
Should a card benchmark at over 60 frames per second in any one game,
the extra fps count as half. Similarly, should a card benchmark lower,
say at 40fps, we deduct half the difference from its average frame rate
and the desired 60fps, giving it a HEXUS.bang4buck score of 30 marks.
The minimum allowable frame rate is 20fps but that scores zero.
Here's the HEXUS.bang4buck graph at 1,920x1,200. The graph divides the normalised score by the price.
| HEXUS.bang4buck - 1,920x1,200 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sapphire HD 4870 TOXIC | ZOTAC GTX 260 | BFG GTX 260 OCX MAXCORE | Force3D HD 4870 | HIS HD 4850 TurboX |
| 1.17 | 1.26 | 1.03 | 1.34 | 1.58 |
Paying over and above a standard HD 4870 512MB card isn't worth it in pure performance terms, because an extra 20 per cent cost is compensated by only a ~6 per cent increase, and that's why the TOXIC scores lower.
However, there's more about it than just pure framerates; something which our graph doesn't show.Temperature musings
We perform our testing on an open test-bed with a 120mm fan simulating case airflow.
| Graphics cards | Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 TOXIC 512MB | Force3D HD 4870 512MB | HIS HD 4850 IceQ4 TurboX 512MB | BFG GTX 260 (216) MAXCORE OC 896MB | ZOTAC GTX 260 896MB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ambient temperature | 20.5°C | 23.5°C | 22°C | 21°C | 23°C |
| Idle temperature | 53°C | 78°C | 46°C | 42°C | 53°C |
| Load temperature | 65°C | 90°C | 58°C | 64°C | 71°C |
| Ambient-to-load delta | 45°C | 67°C | 36°C | 43°C | 48°C |
Here's one aspect in which the HD 4870 TOXIC gives the reference card a whipping. Idle and load temperatures are some 25°C lower than the reference design, and the TOXIC's fan is also quieter when running at full tilt.
NVIDIA's reference heatsinks are much better at keeping the GPUs cool, as you can see.
Overclocking
Cranking it up some more from the base 780MHz/4,000MHz clocks, we managed to gain just another 10MHz on the core, raising it to 790MHz. The memory, which is already significantly overclocked compared to stock, flew to 4,300MHz!Looking back at the ET:QW test at 1,920x1,200 we see that card, at its shipping clocks, scored an average 75.07fps. When overclocked this rose to just 75.9 fps, hinting that the core/shader speed, in this game, is holding it back.
