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Comparison: Factory-Overclocked Versus Reference Graphics

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In order to set their products apart, third-party vendors take reference GPUs from AMD and Nvidia, then make their own tweaks to layout, cooling, and performance. We're comparing a tuned-up card from MSI to AMD's reference Radeon HD 5870 to measure value.

Benchmarks: Alien Vs. Predator

This 3D shooter offers an awesome and sometimes scary environment and mixed the Alien and Predator universes very much like the motion picture. There are three single player campaigns, in which you can choose your character from humans (Marines), Aliens, or Predators. The Asura engine is a state-of-the-art DirectX 11 solution that supports tessellation.

We did not activate anti-aliasing because of the high 1920x1200 resolution, but we enabled anisotropic filtering in 8x mode. Very high texture quality, high shadow settings, and ambient occlusion concluded our maximum quality settings. Our test sequence draws lots of visual effects and fog, which results in reproducible average frame rates.

All DirextX 11 graphics cards are compared using the normal mode, which is sustainable for older DirectX 10 or 9 graphics cards that do not support tessellation. However, we didn’t benchmark DX 9 and 11 seperately, because tessellation only has a 1-3 FPS performance impact. The graphics card reaches 100% load in this workload; the processor stays at around 30% load on one core, while the other cores are somewhere between 7 and 15% load.

27 Comments Comment from the forums
  • chrissmartin 25 July 2010 18:30
    i will buy a normal card with good cooling and overclock it.
    Reply
  • rohitbaran 25 July 2010 18:59
    Too less performance gain (4-5 FPS) for the too much extra price paid ($50-$70) along with too much increase in power consumption (30-40 W. Better to buy a reference card unless you want the best no matter what the price is.
    Reply
  • Mark Heath 25 July 2010 19:53
    I like the idea behind the article and I'm glad that there's been some testing done on it, but I don't really like the article itself.

    There are references to how much the reference card is overclocked by, but there is no clear section about it, you started off with some of the summary charts, instead of putting them after the initial tests and you kept switching what cards you were comparing, with less warning than I would like..

    Plus there's that 2GB 5850. Is that really a 2GB 5850, or is it actually 2GB 5830, because it kept getting beaten by the 1GB 5850..

    Reply
  • Onus 25 July 2010 20:27
    When I buy a new GPU, I look for one who's reference clocks make it "good enough" as-is; but I do look for a better / quieter cooler.
    Reply
  • mrhoshos96 25 July 2010 21:01
    great article but u should have compared the reference against the sapphire vapor-x
    Reply
  • Tesla1483 25 July 2010 21:31
    In order to their products apart, third-party vendors take reference GPUs...

    I'm guessing they meant "In order to SET their products apart..."
    Seriously, it's the first sentence in the article. Does no one proof read anything here? Isn't that like the first thing you learn when you want to become a writer? Sorry, rant over.
    Reply
  • youssef 2010 26 July 2010 04:23
    "This cooling concept works pretty well, as it not only provides effective graphics component cooling, but it also helps to remove warm air from the inside of your PC. "

    The reference 5870 has a vent on its side so, it doesn't completely remove the hot air from the case but recirculates a part of the hot air back into the case
    Reply
  • duk3 26 July 2010 10:01
    It's a 5850, look how close the framerates are.
    The amount of ram doesn't really matter at these resolutions.
    Reply
  • LLJones 26 July 2010 11:28
    The cards just do not offer enough gain. If you can afford the overclock edition at a premium, then save up a little more and get the next card up or buy two of the next lower cards. The $1000+ dual 5870 from Asus shows what a complete waste of money some, not all, super OC cards are.

    Try this, put together a really really really premium card component wise, and then don't put any cooling on it. Let me decide what I am going to do for cooling and companies can save on packaging, shipping etc due to no cooler.

    If your really aiming at the OC crowd and not just playing a game of marketing, then you know the first thing someone does is to rip off your factory cooler to replace it or at the very least put quality thermal compound on it.
    Reply
  • dEAne 26 July 2010 13:34
    I like this article, thanks tom.
    Reply