Heaven Demo v1.0
Unigines Heaven Demo v1.0 has been replaced by their version 2.1 edition. We ran all the benches before the realization had set in. However, this version is still relevant in the context that it wraps up all our synthetic benchmarks into one neat bow, testing from DirectX 9 through to DirectX 11 and even OpenGL.
As the previous benches have shown, OpenGL isn’t the GTX 460’s strong suite. We are however surprised by the GTX 460 in the DirectX9 column though but are pleased to see the new $200 kid in town edge out the other $200 kid in town in more modern DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 tests. nVidia has made no apologies about optimizing it for today’s games and future games so we may be seeing this as a reflection of what comes in the next few benchmarks.
Stone Giant
Stone Giant is a great benchmark for showing off the prowess of a video card when it comes to tessellation and DX11. These are both areas where the Fermi architecture thrives. As we can see, it definitely does do that by a very convincing margin. Although ATI was the first out the gate with a DirectX 11 card, it would seem that nVidia is doing it better today.
Game Engine Benchmarks
Game engine benchmarks are extremely important to the evaluation of the performance of a video card. It provides a consistent measuring stick and lets us know which cards work well for which games. This allows us to select the right tool for the right job. Obviously we’ll pick the card that performs best for the games or genres of games that we play the most. We’ve also selected benchmarks that are mostly free and readily available to the public so that you’re able to compare at home, just like our selection of synthetic benchmarks. We’ll be concentrating on playable frame rates on each of the tests.
Crysis
If you have a video card review, you have to have Crysis. Despite its age, it is still one of the most punishing game engines out there that has stood the test of time. We used HardwareOC’s Crysis Benchmark tool to set the quality to Ultra High and we used the built in Crysis Map for our test…
As you can see even today’s newest cards can’t handle Crysis at 30 frames per second. We didn’t even bother to try anti aliasing because we’d just be looking at unplayable frame rates. Having said that, DX9 was very playable and it’s nice to see the GTX 460 does indeed do well in some older titles. DX10 however is another matter as none of the cards reach the magical 30 fps window of playability, but the HD 5830 does show that it’s the boss here.
Far Cry2
Where we have Crysis, we have Far Cry2 not that far behind. This time we dive a little deeper into which GPU reigns supreme and where…
It’s nice to see that both $200 cards and the slightly cheaper HD 5770 all produce playable frame rates at both AA and non AA settings in both DX9 and DX10. It’s also great to see that even minimum frame rates are at or exceed the 30 fps magical barrier which ensure smooth gameplay throughout. The GTX 460 shows that it is the King here in a commanding lead overall.