HEXUS.bang4buck, HEXUS.bang4watt, overclocking
In a rough-and-ready assessment of the cards' bang for buck, we've aggregated the 1,920x1,200 and 2,560x1,600 frame-rates for five 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 five different games, the cards' prices could have been derived from other sources and pricing tends to fluctuate daily.
Consequently, the tables 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.1,920x1,200
| Graphics cards | HIS Radeon HD 5970 2,048MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 TOXIC 2,048MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1,024MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 1,024MB | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 1,536MB | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 1,280MB | BFG GeForce GTX 295 1,792MB | BFG GeForce GTX 285 1,024MB | EVGA GeForce GTX 275 896MB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actual aggregate marks at 1,920x1,200 | 479.12 | 355.58 | 342.43 | 295.68 | 432.89 | 345.82 | 363.16 |
259.49 |
234.23 |
| Aggregate marks, normalised*, at 1,920x1,200 | 364.02 |
297.49 |
289.59 |
254.29 |
334.22 | 277.4 |
295.16 |
224.23 |
202.39 |
| Current pricing, including VAT | £550 | £360 | £310 | £225 | £440 | £320 | £350 | £275 | £199 |
| HEXUS.bang4buck score at 1,920x1,200 | 0.662 | 0.826 | 0.934 | 1.13 | 0.759 |
0.867 |
0.843 |
0.815 | 1.017 |
| HEXUS.bang4watt score at 1,920x1,200** | 0.793 | 0.8 | 0.905 | 0.892 |
0.704 |
0.806 |
0.584 |
0.598 |
0.552 |
2,560x1,600
| Graphics cards | HIS Radeon HD 5970 2,048MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 TOXIC 2,048MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1,024MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 1,024MB | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 1,536MB | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 1,280MB | BFG GeForce GTX 295 1,792MB | BFG GeForce GTX 285 1,024MB | EVGA GeForce GTX 275 896MB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actual aggregate marks at 2,560x1,600 | 346.21 |
258.93 | 244.84 | 209.08 | 290.29 | 229.71 | 264.78 |
NA |
NA |
| Aggregate marks, normalised*, at 2,560x1,600 | 284.53 |
224.47 |
216.92 |
175.2 |
240.53 | 199.2 |
233.2 |
NA |
NA |
| Current pricing, including VAT | £550 | £360 | £310 | £225 | £440 | £320 | £350 | £275 | £199 |
| HEXUS.bang4buck score at 2,560x1,600 | 0.517 | 0.623 | 0.7 | 0.779 | 0.547 | 0.622 | 0.666 | NA | NA |
* 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.
** the HEXUS.bang4watt score is a crude measurement of how much normalised performance the GPU provides when evaluated against peak system-wide power-draw that's shown on the previous page: the former is divided by the latter. Bear in mind that FurMark, the application used, tends to load up NVIDIA cards a touch more than AMD's.
The HEXUS.bang4buck score only takes the performance and price into account, of course.
Evaluation
The HEXUS.bang4buck is better for the GeForce GTX 470 than for the more-expensive sibling. The value proposition goes down at 2,560x1,600 when compared to the single-GPU Radeons, and it's worth remembering that they're quieter and more power-efficient, as well.
Overclocking
We increased the fan-speed to 80 per cent (<4,000rpm, but still loud) and then used EVGA's Precision tool to force up the clocks. From the default 607MHz/1,215MHz/3,348MHz clockings for core, shader and memory, respectively, we hit 710MHz/1,420MHz/ 3,920MHz, representing decent increases over stock. System-wide power-draw increases from a peak 397W to 439W, however.
Looking at the 2,560x1,600 results, Far Cry 2 (8x AA) performance rose from 42.18fps to 47.85fps and DiRT 2 DX11 from 40.48fps to 45.31fps.
We'll be looking at overclocking performance to a greater degree with partner cards.
