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DirectX 11 adds demanding new features, including hardware tessellation and new lighting effects. We turned up everything we could in our DX11 benchmarks. Note that the 285 GTX is now out of the picture, since it doesn’t support DirectX 11’s new features.
We’ll begin with a synthetic test, Heaven, based on the Unigine game engine. Note that we’ve cranked up tessellation to “Extreme”. It’s interesting to see how the 768MB GTX 460 falls off a cliff, probably due to that cards smaller frame buffer, exacerbated by the lower bandwidth available with the 192-bit wide memory interface.
More importantly, AMD is roundly trounced in this benchmark. It’s worth noting that discussions with developers have noted that AMD does pretty well with shader heavy scenes, but Nvidia cards are – and we’ll quote an unnamed source here – “tessellation monsters.” It certainly shows here.
Okay, so Nvidia can pull out its self-described “can of whoop-ass” on AMD in a synthetic, tessellation heavy test. Let’s see how it does in actual game benchmarks.
There’s not a lot of hardware tessellation in BattleForge, but a lot of lighting effects – particularly SSAO style effects. You’d think an RTS like BattleForge would be CPU bound, but it scales pretty well with GPUs. AMD just can’t keep up here; the HD 5830 falls behind everyone else, while the HD 5850s and 5870s are beaten down by the higher end GTX 470 and 480 cards in SLI mode.
It’s another Nvidia sweep. While the HD 5870 comes close to the GTX 470, it still falls just short. The HD 5850 is in a dead heat with the less expensive GTX 460 1GB cards. Note how the HD 5830 once again brings up the rear.
The Aliens versus Predator benchmark uses DX11 tesselation. It’s worth noting that AMD can stay pretty close to Nvidia if you leave AA dialed down, but once you add anti-aliasing, the big green machine turns up the nitro and leaves the boys in red far, far behind.
New game, same old story: Nvidia wins. Note that it appears that the GTX 470 beats the GTX 480, but it’s really a dead heat – what we’re seeing here is the GPU waiting for the CPU in a classic CPU-bound situation.
So it’s apparent the Nvidia’s high end cards rule the roost in performance. Why not just slap a pair of GTX 480s in your system and be done with it. Well, first there’s the price. Two GTX 480s will set you back a solid kilobuck or more. A pair of Radeon HD 5870s will set you back less than $800, if you shop for standard clocked cards.
Then there’s power. This chart suggest why you might not want to just drop in two GTX 480 cards.
It’s worth noting that two GTX 480s seem to use slightly less power than a pair of GTX 470 cards when the system is idling, though it’s not a large difference. But look at those numbers for system under load. Those power numbers were captured using a Watts Up Pro meter connected via USB to a PC to collect power data in real time. Power usage was captured when running the Unigine Heaven benchmark at 2560x1600 at 4x anti-aliasing.
If the GTX 480 is one power hungry cards, paired factory overclocked GTX 480s are power hungry monsters. Note that our 850W Corsair power supply had no problems delivering the 665W of system power needed under full load. A pair of Radeon HD 5870s consumed fully 230W less than the GTX 480s. At idle, two HD 4870s ran nearly 40W cooler.
It’s worth noting that neither the GTX 480 nor GTX 470 running in SLI mode ever had any problem with any game test. However, they did get extremely loud – enough so that you’d want to either use a headset to hear your game audio or really pump up your speaker volume. You’ll want a solid case with good airflow, which will mitigate both heat and noise somewhat.
AMD has invested substantial time and resources improving CrossFire X, but it’s clear that Nvidia’s SLI is currently the superior dual GPU solution. Nvidia’s generation of DX11 cards scale very well when adding the second card, and SLI still works with more titles than CrossFire X, thought that gap is narrowing.
One thing that’s quite evident from all our testing: the Radeon HD 5830 is very much an odd duck. It’s been our experience that both single card HD 5830s and 5830s running in CrossFire X mode just don’t have the horsepower to justify its current cost point.
On the other hand, there might be times you might want to consider paired Radeon HD 5850s or 5870s, particularly if power, heat and noise issues are of concern. However, both the GTX 470 and 480 in SLI seriously spank AMD’s best in sheer performance.
In many ways, the 460 GTX impresses us more. Running in SLI mode, these cards scale well, never seem to get particularly loud or too hot, and can either stay close in terms of performance to AMDs high end card. They can certainly outperform the HD 5850 in most cases. And if you’re looking at Nvidia specific features, like PhysX or 3D Vision, the GTX 460 are affordable, even if you buy a pair. We’d strongly suggest stepping up to the 1GB version, however.
So are dual GPUs worth the cost and hassle? If you’re a serious gamer with 1080p displays or better, the answer is definitely “yes.” But take a look at what you plan on running, your resolution and other factors before you drop in that second card.
Comments are closed on this article
jmanley001
November 05, 2010 at 8:40pm
(The opinions expressed by the reader are strictly that...opinion. Haters can get the bawleys..)
I don't really care which wins the GTX480 SLI or 5870 Xfire solution. I've owned both cards, and honestly I'm perfectly happy with my 5870. After two GTX 480's died after only 3 months (the original, and then the factory replacement) I'm pretty much fed up with Nvidia. Sure its a beast of a card, and will stomp all over the 5870. But price/performance, ATI's won this one. In fact, I'd nominate the 5870 as hardware of the year. I hardly notice that much of a difference in performance in any of my games, between the two cards. (I run everything at 1920 x 1200) Only thing that seems to lag is Unigine Heaven benchmark, and the lack of Gpu simulated water in Just Cause 2. Other than that, the 5870 kicks @ss. Not to mention, it runs a heck of a lot cooler, even overclocked...within reason of course.
Regardless, it comes down to personal preference. I've always been a big fan of Nvidia, but their latest offerings, left a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe the GTX 580 will change my mind....we'll see...
raguza123
October 30, 2010 at 6:15am
first of all, you must be idiots, all the cards here are similar, and you can run two different Nvidia cards in SLI mode, get out from behind your rig, I've done it, it will run at the slower one's mode, and as far as ATI, yuk, Nvidia rules alway will, has better drivers, they fine tune there drivers as newer games come out, ATI doesn't and ATI has too many driver issues, If ATI was so great how come they are chasing Nvidia not the other way around DUMMIES
robbtheskater
September 24, 2010 at 7:57am
"You guys are all nvidia fanboys", "these results are biased, they didn't even test the 5970" blah blah blah. Do a single one of you internet flaming morons who think you know everything notice that all those cards are single GPU graphics adapters? No, you're right; you didn't. So please, actually contribute in the damned comment section instead of flaming these tech reporters over nothing. They don't do this for their f***ing health. They actually like to see discussions and not bull**** in the comment section.....
Unless someone can prove to me that they have one of these cards with Dual GPU's then i believe I am right. And you are all morons. (the people who acted like morons that is)
And no, Im not a Nvidia fanboy. I have a 5870 and ATI's drivers suck. Not MaximumPC's fault.
Nycromes
September 03, 2010 at 5:13am
The 480 came out on top in almost every benchmark, not much to dispute there. But to say that the GTX 470 spanks the 5870 is stretching it a little bit. The cards are nearly neck and neck in many/most of your benchmarks and the 5870 lost big in one or two, excepting those tests, the differences aren't exactly as drastic as you make them out to be. That being said, the GTX 470 does come out on top in most of the matchups. Personally, I will stick to the fastest single GPU I can afford for my box.
elo231
August 29, 2010 at 9:21am
According to THG's article on the difference between SLI and CrossFire
They found out that in the different CrossFire modes with BFBC2 @ 1920x1200, 4x AA, 8x AF, HQ, DX10
No connectors: 46.9 FPS
1 connector on left: 82.7 FPS
1 connector on right: 82.9 FPS
Both on left and right: 83.0 FPS
Seriously that article is more detailed and shows the benefits as well as drawbacks into using a dual gpu setup.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-crossfire-nvidia-sli-multi-gpu,2678.html
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August 28, 2010 at 9:17pm
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sk8erboi101
August 28, 2010 at 6:12pm
typical nVidia fanboy. the benchmark test are obviously unfair. rounding up higend nvidia cards with "not-so-highend" ati cards
kr4st
August 28, 2010 at 7:39am
Hay Loyd, looks like you hacked off a few AMD gamers with your benchmarks. Ive never used any Crossfire setup but have used SLI for some time. My outdated 3GHz Core 2 Duo, NVIDIA MoBo and 2 8800 GTS SLI are still running all the DirectX 10 games I play on a 22 inch LCD monitor. Thanks Loyd for the info, readers who are satisfied with their gaming rigs need to chill out, and uses these benchmarks as they were intended.
INTEL and NVIDIA are still my choices for upgrade in the future.
How badly would a single GTX 470 spank my SLI 8800GTS on a 22 in monitor?
gwmckay
August 26, 2010 at 11:30am
The folks over at TomsHardware benchmark the 5970 Ares and the 480 still came out on top. The 480 is a beast, but the power draw and heat makes an SLI setup IMO not worth it.
crazitrain02
August 26, 2010 at 1:20pm
I've looked all over Tom's Hardware for a comparison between the 480 and the 5970, and most of the ones I've looked at have the 4870x2 beating out the 480.
sniggler
August 26, 2010 at 9:09am
but wait until I dial my xfire 5850's up to 1 GHz core / 1150 mem. We'll see who gets spanked then
crazitrain02
August 26, 2010 at 7:35am
If you're going to do a benchmark and tout to the world that you are an nVidia guy, cool, but at least have some respect and do a proper benchmark here. If you're going to use the top of the line nVidia card and then use ATI's 58xx series when there's the 59xx series available then you might as well compare apples to watermelons. If you were to make the headline correct either put a HUGE asterisk next to the title, or rename it to something else.
lou29
August 26, 2010 at 6:40am
Hey MPC can you please benchmark the 5970 I feel cold curled up in a corner Im a ATI guy put the 5970
to the test along with the best from NVIDIA please make us ATI fans feel better.
jonc1028
August 25, 2010 at 8:38pm
the power graph was a little confusing because it was supposed to be a graph of power consumption, but was labeled as FPS instead of Watts. Also there was no distinction between the blue bars and the red bars. From reading the short explanation below the graph i guessed they were PC at idle and PC at 100% load
Neckername
August 25, 2010 at 6:31pm
When I researched multi video card solutuions a while ago for one of my builds, I remember that Crossfire was the only one that could run multi monitors while nVidia SLI only supported one monitor. That has probably changed since then... I hope. I still hear from friends at LANs and on forum posts that there are some issues with multi monitor multi GPU configs. I would rather trade in two cards for a dual proc single pcb solution that eliminates the SLI connector and extra power plugs and power.
carnivorousslushee23
August 25, 2010 at 9:34pm
I'm gonna guess that they wanted to use only single-GPU cards for their benchmarks. Seeing as the 5970 is a dual-GPU card, it doesn't fit the specifications for this article.
crazitrain02
August 26, 2010 at 7:38am
A single card is always better anyways, plus we all know that the 5970 will spank a 480 in both power consumption and heat. nVidia has always been horrible with power and heat.
Nailer669
August 26, 2010 at 4:29am
I don't care how many GPUs are on a card. I only care that it is a single card. Why test the AMD X6 to a quad-core i7 if they follow this mantra? They say that 4 chips don't scale wel in Crossfire. Who cares? We still want to see the perfromance.
It's a conspiracy. They knew they'd get the question. They are saving it up for another article.... more articles less work. But i know nothing.... *wink wink nudge nudge*
americaeh
August 29, 2010 at 6:47pm
its not a conspiracy but i would like this test to include tri and quad crossfire and sli setups even though the performance increase would be minimum.
elo231
August 29, 2010 at 9:27am
If you want a apples to apples test then it will be a single HD5970 vs 2x GTX480 in SLI.
As the HD5970 is a dual GPU card so it's technically already in CrossFire.
B.A.Frayd
August 25, 2010 at 4:23pm
After reading many forum posts for various games, it seems like SLI And Crossfire have too many compatibility problems to be worth the money.
crazitrain02
August 26, 2010 at 7:44am
With ATI you can have two cards that are in the same Series. nVidia they have to be the same identical card with identical firmware or they have problems. I'm running two different 4870s, one Diamond 512MB and the other Sapphire Vapor-X 2GB with no issues at all. Technically you could run a 4830 and a 4890, and the Crossfire would just downclock the better card to play nice.
Talcum X
August 25, 2010 at 4:17pm
I don't konw when I will get the chance to upgrade (will be a complete rebuild)...will have to see what monitor I pick out. Will only be playing UT2K4 / III still anyways, so I guess 1 will still do, even on a 30". Depends on life at that point.
