Test Setup And Benchmarks
We tested all of the cards in today's story with each company's latest beta drivers: Catalyst 14.1 beta 6 from AMD and 334.67 beta from Nvidia. Moreover, we used medium- to high-detail settings at 1920x1080 to give the Radeon R7 265 and its competition a realistic workload, which should strike a good balance between image quality and performance for this class of card. I'm also including screenshots to demonstrate how these detail levels appear in-game.
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Test System |
|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i5-2550K (Sandy Bridge), Overclocked to 4.2 GHz @ 1.3 V |
| Motherboard | Asus P8Z77-V LX. LGA 1155, Chipset: Intel Z77M |
| Networking | On-Board Gigabit LAN controller |
| Memory | Corsair Performance Memory, 4 x 4 GB, 1866 MT/s, CL 9-9-9-24-1T |
| Graphics | Sapphire Radeon R7 260X1100 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1625 MHz (6500 MT/s)XFX Radeon HD 7850860 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 1200 MHz (4800 MT/s)Sapphire Radeon R7 265925 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1400 MHz (5600 MT/s)Reference Radeon R9 270925 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1400 MHz (5600 MT/s)Reference Nvidia GTX 650 Ti925 MHz GPU, 1 GB DDR3 at 1350 MHz (5400 MT/s)Reference Nvidia GTX 650 Ti Boost980/1033 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1502 MHz (6008 MT/s)Reference Nvidia GTX 660980/1033 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1502 MHz (6008 MT/s) |
| Hard Drive | 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 14.1 Beta 6, Nvidia GeForce 334.67 Beta |
We've almost completely eliminated mechanical storage in the lab, and instead lean on solid-state drives to alleviate I/O-related bottlenecks. Samsung sent all of our offices 256 GB 840 Pros, so we standardize on these exceptional SSDs.
Naturally, discrete graphics cards require a substantial amount of stable power, so XFX sent along its PRO850W 80 PLUS Bronze-certified power supply. This modular PSU employs a single +12 V rail rated for 70 A. XFX claims that this unit provides 850 W of continuous power (not peak) at 50 degrees Celsius (a higher temperature than you'll find inside most enclosures).
| Benchmark Configuration | |
|---|---|
| 3D Games | |
| Metro: Last Light | Version 1.0.0.14, Built-in Benchmark |
| Grid 2 | Version 1.8.85.8679, Built-in Benchmark Scene D6 |
| Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag | Version 1.05, Custom THG Benchmark, 40-Sec |
| Battlefield 4 | Version 1.0.0.1, Custom THG Benchmark, 90-Sec |
| BioShock Infinite | Version 1.1.24.21018, Built-in Benchmark |