Read more.Quote:
We test it against GTX 670 on three screens.
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Read more.Quote:
We test it against GTX 670 on three screens.
Why use MSAA at these resolutions ? With it turned off the framerates would surely be much higher, and gives the end user a much more useful benchmark.
Remember just how wide the viewing area on three screens is. The pixel density is no smaller than running on one 1,920x1,080 screen, and we'd always have high AA/AF for that. Of course you can reduce the AA/AF to an extent where the cards produce much higher framerates and you could keep reducing them for, say, a Radeon HD 7850 or Radeon HD 7770.
The point here is to see how these super-powerful, expensive video cards react when the same quality settings are applied to a single screen (24in, 1,920x1,080), a super-high-resolution screen (30in, 2,560x1,600) and super-wide screens (72in, 5,760x1,080). Putting the same IQ load on cards provides clear continuity between resolution results and indicates that a very high-quality three-screen gaming experience is just outside the remit of a single HD 7950 or GTX 670 card. But the settings also provide an adequate test for two-card HD 7950 or GTX 670, as you will see in an upcoming article.
Another good review Tarinder, I'm especially liking the FPS/Time graphs, very useful for the more detailed differences between how the cards handle different games.
Oh yeah I understand the need for it but in a way it's kind of an unfair test, as the extra VRAM puts the AMD at an unfair advantage, considering how much extra MSAA uses, when FXAA does as good of a job with less of a penalty.
Or am I wrong ? From what I remember MSAA uses a lot of VRAM because it generates higher res textures to overlay, so with the 3 screens the VRAM needed is massive, and would equal more of a performance hit than the calculation itself.
That's kind of what I remember anyway, wouldn't be the first time I'm wrong :D
AMD is giving you a 3GB buffer for the same price as NVIDIA provides a 2GB buffer on the GTX 600-series. I personally consider this a good thing from AMD - let's forget about the the design choices, bus width, etc. - and, taking it to an extreme, would prefer NVIDIA provide 4GB of GDDR5 memory at the same price as 2GB.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tunnah
That's why I'm interested in seeing the FXAA-only numbers, as I reckon 2GB would be more than enough even at 3 screen gaming, would rather have a more powerful card (as I suspect).
Also to use that extra VRAM you have to put up resolution and settings to a level that the card can't handle comfortably.
I'll know soon enough myself, looks like I'm getting a 670 instead of a 680 like I was originally planning.