Test Setup And Sequence
| Test Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Processors | Intel Core i7-2600K (Sandy Bridge) 3.4 GHz (34 * 100 MHz), LGA 1155, 8 MB Shared L3, Turbo Boost enabled, Hyper-Threading enabled, Power-savings enabled |
| Row 1 - Cell 0 | Intel Core i3-2105 (Sandy Bridge) 3.1 GHz (31 * 100 MHz), LGA 1155, 3 MB Shared L3, Hyper-Threading enabled, Power-savings enabled |
| Row 2 - Cell 0 | Intel Core i7-875K (Lynnfield) 2.93 GHz (22 * 133 MHz), LGA 1156, 8 MB Shared L3, Turbo Boost enabled, Hyper-Threading enabled, Power-savings enabled |
| Row 3 - Cell 0 | Intel Core i3-530 (Clarkdale) 2.93 GHz, LGA 1156, 4 MB Shared L3, Power-savings enabled |
| Row 4 - Cell 0 | AMD FX-8150 (Zambezi) 3.6 GHz (18 * 200 MHz), Socket AM3+, 8 MB Shared L3, Turbo Core enabled, Power-savings enabled |
| Motherboard | Asus P8Z68-V Pro (LGA 1155) Intel Z68 Express, BIOS 0801 |
| Row 6 - Cell 0 | Asus Maximus III Formula (LGA 1156) Intel P55 Express, BIOS 2001 |
| Row 7 - Cell 0 | Asus Crosshair V Formula (Socket AM3+) AMD 990FX/SB950, BIOS 0813 |
| Memory | Crucial 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR3-1333, MT16JTF1G64AZ-1G4D1 @ 1.65 V |
| Row 9 - Cell 0 | G.Skill 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-2133, F3-17000CL9Q-16BZH @ 1.65 V |
| Hard Drive | Intel SSD 510 250 GB, SATA 6Gb/s |
| Graphics | AMD Radeon HD 6990 4 GB GDDR5 |
| Row 12 - Cell 0 | AMD Radeon HD 6970 2 GB GDDR5 |
| Row 13 - Cell 0 | AMD Radeon HD 6950 2 GB GDDR5 |
| Row 14 - Cell 0 | AMD Radeon HD 5970 2 GB GDDR5 |
| Row 15 - Cell 0 | AMD Radeon HD 5870 1 GB GDDR5 |
| Row 16 - Cell 0 | AMD Radeon HD 6870 1 GB GDDR5 |
| Row 17 - Cell 0 | AMD Radeon HD 5850 1 GB GDDR5 |
| Row 18 - Cell 0 | AMD Radeon HD 6850 1 GB GDDR5 |
| Row 19 - Cell 0 | AMD Radeon HD 5770 1 GB GDDR5 |
| Row 20 - Cell 0 | AMD Radeon HD 5750 1 GB GDDR5 |
| Row 21 - Cell 0 | AMD Radeon HD 4870 512 MB GDDR5 |
| Row 22 - Cell 0 | AMD Radeon HD 4850 512 MB GDDR3 |
| Row 23 - Cell 0 | AMD Radeon HD 4770 512 MB GDDR5 |
| Row 24 - Cell 0 | Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 512 MB GDDR4 |
| Row 25 - Cell 0 | AMD Radeon HD 5570 512 MB GDDR5 |
| Row 26 - Cell 0 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 590 3 GB GDDR5 |
| Row 27 - Cell 0 | Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 1.5 GB GDDR5 |
| Row 28 - Cell 0 | Asus GeForce GTX 570 1.25 GB GDDR5 |
| Row 29 - Cell 0 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 1.5 GB GDDR5 |
| Row 30 - Cell 0 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 470 1.25 GB GDDR5 |
| Row 31 - Cell 0 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 1 GB GDDR5 |
| Row 32 - Cell 0 | Nvidia GeForce GTS 450 1 GB GDDR5 |
| Row 33 - Cell 0 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 896 MB GDDR3 * 2 |
| Row 34 - Cell 0 | BFG GeForce GTX 285 1 GB GDDR3 |
| Row 35 - Cell 0 | Zotac GeForce GTX 275 896 MB GDDR3 |
| Row 36 - Cell 0 | Zotac GeForce GTX 260 896 MB GDDR3 |
| Row 37 - Cell 0 | BFG GeForce GTS 250 1 GB GDDR3 |
| Row 38 - Cell 0 | BFG GeForce 9800 GTX 512 MB GDDR3 |
| Row 39 - Cell 0 | Asus GeForce 8500 GT 256 MB DDR3 |
| Power Supply | Cooler Master UCP-1000 W |
| System Software And Drivers | |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit |
| DirectX | DirectX 11 |
| Graphics Driver | AMD Catalyst 11.10 Preview 3 |
| Row 45 - Cell 0 | Nvidia GeForce Release 285.62 |
The video clip above demonstrates the short sequence used for benchmarking. It's not the most demanding segment of Battlefield 3 I've seen thus far, nor is it necessarily the most representative of single-player game play (and certainly not multi-player). However, after a couple of hundred runs, I know it's consistent.
That makes this system precise, but not necessarily accurate, so its validity could certainly be called into question. The challenge in a game like this, which doesn't offer the timedemo functionality purportedly made available to IHVs, but not press, is that nailing both precision and accuracy then becomes very difficult due to Fraps-based testing of actual sequences. While not perfect, what we have here is, at the very least, great for relativistic comparisons.
