As always, we strive to represent game performance across a wide range of graphics hardware. We include cards ranging from the low-end Radeon HD 6450 and GeForce GT 630 GDDR5 to the powerful Radeon R9 290X, HD 7990, GeForce GTX 780 Ti, and 690.

We all know that boards like the Radeon HD 7990 require a substantial amount of power, so XFX sent us its PRO850W 80 PLUS Bronze-certified power supply. This modular PSU employs a single +12 V rail rated for 70 A. XFX claims continuous (not peak) output of up to 850 W at 50 degrees Celsius.

We've almost exclusively eliminated mechanical disks in the lab, preferring solid-state storage for alleviating I/O-related bottlenecks. Samsung sent all of our labs 256 GB 840 Pros, so we standardize on these exceptional SSDs.
| Test System | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i7-4770K (Haswell), Overclocked to 4.4 GHz @ 1.2 V | ||||
| Motherboard | ASRock Z87 Pro3 LGA 1150, Intel Z87 Express | ||||
| Networking | On-Board Gigabit LAN controller | ||||
| Memory | 8 GB Corsair Vengeance LP (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1866, Model CML8GX3M2A1866C9B 1866 MT/s 9-10-9-27 2T @ 1.5 V | ||||
| Graphics | GeForce GT 630 512 MB GDDR5 GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2 GB GDDR5 GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2 GB GDDR5 GeForce GTX 660 2 GB GDDR5 GeForce GTX 760 2 GB GDDR5 GeForce GTX 770 2 GB GDDR5 GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3 GB GDDR5 GeForce GTX 690 4 GB GDDR5 Radeon HD 6450 512 MB GDDR5 Radeon R7 240 1 GB DDR3 Radeon R7 250X 1 GB GDDR5 Radeon R7 260X 1 GB GDDR5 Radeon R9 270 2 GB GDDR5 Radeon R9 280 3 GB GDDR5 Radeon R9 280X 3 GB GDDR5 Radeon R9 290X 4 GB GDDR5 Radeon HD 7990 6 GB GDDR5 | ||||
| SSD | Samsung 840 Pro, 256 GB SSD, SATA 6Gb/s | ||||
| Power | XFX PRO850W, ATX12V, EPS12V | ||||
| Software and Drivers | |||||
| Operating System | Microsoft Windows 8 Pro x64 | ||||
| DirectX | DirectX 11 | ||||
| Graphics Drivers | AMD Catalyst 14.2 Beta 1.3, Nvidia GeForce 335.23 WHQL | ||||
| Benchmarks | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Elder Scrolls Online | Custom Tom's Hardware Benchmark, 40-second Fraps run, Stonetooth, Betnikh | |||||||
The game clearly favors Nvidia graphics cards, at least with the build tested. But as you also see with the absence of SLI and Crossfire profiles, driver work isn't done on the game, so it's possible AMD just hadn't optimised their drivers while Nvidia had, giving Nvidia a huge artificial advantage. Time will tell if that's the case.