How we test
How we test
Today we'll put thirteen graphics cards to the test. Unfortunately Starcraft II does not have a benchmark mode. But to does allow you to record a clip and then play that back. We use that feature as it rendered real-time and is 1:1: to original gameplay. With FRAPS we now measure the game performance measured in frames per second.
Before we begin we have to state this, FRAPS is not 100% secure in this title. If we reset the system, boot up again and start the game with the very same drivers and hardware we'd easily see 5% performance differences. Please take that into consideration, benchmarking with Starcraft II Will never ever be a precise measurement - it however will be an objective enough indication.
Our test setup:
-
Intel Core i7 965 @ 3750 MHz
-
eVGA X58 Classified
-
6144 MB (3x 2048 MB) DDR3 Corsair @ 1500 MHz
-
Power Supply Unit 1200 Watt BFG
-
Monitor Dell 3007WFP - up to 2560x1600
-
Windows 7 RTM 64-bit (fully patched up)
-
DirectX 9/10/11 latest End User Runtime
-
ATI Catalyst 10.6
-
NVIDIA GeForce 258.96 WHQL
The cards tested:
-
GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB
-
GeForce GTX 260 SP216 896MB
-
GeForce GTX 285 1792MB
-
GeForce GTX 460 1024MB
-
GeForce GTX 460 768MB
-
GeForce GTX 470 1280MB
-
GeForce GTX 480 1536MB
-
Radeon HD 4770 512MB
-
Radeon HD 4870 1024MB
-
Radeon HD 5770 1024MB
-
Radeon HD 5830 1024MB
-
Radeon HD 5850 1024MB
-
Radeon HD 5870 1024MB
Frames per second |
Gameplay |
<30 FPS |
very limited gameplay |
30-40 FPS |
average yet very playable |
40-60 FPS |
good gameplay |
>60 FPS |
best possible gameplay |
We will test these graphics card with our own timedemo/recording. Some stuff you'll notice is this, most cards are not at all GPU limited, the fast processor at nearly 3.8 GHz therefore will boost performance significantly up-to 1920x1200.
Since the ATI drivers do not yet support Anti- aliasing we'll test the thirteen ATI & NVIDIA graphics cards with all image quality settings maxed out. And then we'll show you a chart with GeForce graphics cards only, yet this time with 4xAA enabled though the Forceware drivers.
We'll test at four resolutions, 1280x1024, 1600x1200, 1920x1200 and 2560x1600.