Core i7 Christmas '08 Graphics Performance - bit-tech.net Forums

Tim S · 17th Dec 2008, 13:46

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...e-on-core-i7/1

The last few weeks have been full of blood, sweat and BIOS revisions in the bit-tech benchmarking sweatshop. We've been feverishly putting our new Core i7-based graphics card test systems together and now we're here to report how the graphics landscape is reforming itself.

wuyanxu · 17th Dec 2008, 14:30

it's just too evenly matched.

to be honest, the only difference is which driver/utility set the customer prefers.

will there be a AVIO vs Badaboom encoding soon? with ATI also starting to release stream processor applications, nVidia no longer have that advantage.

amacieli · 17th Dec 2008, 14:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by wuyanxu

will there be a AVIO vs Badaboom encoding soon?

+10000. And we should include "regular" encoders too, like TMPGEnc and non-accelerated encoders to see if there are any quality differences.

Tim S · 17th Dec 2008, 14:48

It is something that we are definitely looking to do, yes! I'd like to look at the various GPU accelerated encoders.

Floyd · 17th Dec 2008, 15:15

I still love my 8800GTs Good performance at a steal of a price!

Xtrafresh · 17th Dec 2008, 15:18

Looks like you guys are really properly set up , great article

I really liked the "4870 vs 260" graphs, very helpful! I recently got my grubby fingers on a 4870 1GB, and i'm glad i did

Bauul · 17th Dec 2008, 15:18

I dunno, all those benchmarks are fine and all, but some more games and cards would have been nice...

(k/g! Awesome job guys, now go enjoy Christmas and stop working so late)

stoff3r · 17th Dec 2008, 16:25

wow lots of work it seems ! The test results didn't surprise any of us i think. Now, the waiting for the next-gen graphics has commenced, as this generation hardly shows us any real performance booms. Also: it's common courtesy to pitty/laugh at, those who bought the Radeon 4870 512mb :/

MiNiMaL_FuSS · 17th Dec 2008, 18:13

my 3870 is starting to look quite shabby, having said that i generally game at 1440x900 and havn't noticed any problem on the lastest titels....the old girl got some life yet?

Jasio · 17th Dec 2008, 19:17

Tim, thanks for the very thorough comparison of GPU's... much appreciated. The step-by-step comparisons and relative percentage gains/losses were particularly informative and insightful. Reviews such as these are the main reason I stick around this site over the US based websites.

Evildead666 · 17th Dec 2008, 23:26

Thanks a lot

A nice comparison.
I came back to ATi with my 4870 1Gb and i'm happy I did. 830MHz core stock cooler all day long ( at 50%)
The 260+ is looking like a better and better choice every day the price comes down tho....

Well, i'm rooting for the next gen fight now ;-)

p3n · 18th Dec 2008, 08:45

Those compairson graphs hurt my head :<

roadie · 18th Dec 2008, 10:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by MiNiMaL_FuSS

my 3870 is starting to look quite shabby, having said that i generally game at 1440x900 and havn't noticed any problem on the lastest titels....the old girl got some life yet?

Yeah, I still have a 3870 too. Does ok for the most part, but AA performance is dire. It also suffers when there are things like smoke and dust in a scene. I am thinking of replacing it after Christmas, but the idle power consumption of the 4870 is too high and the GTX260 is too long to fit in my case without modification. I really hope both manufacturers can address these points!

PureSilver · 18th Dec 2008, 13:43

My God, that's a lot of graphs! Brilliant review, as ever...

Andrei · 24th Dec 2008, 01:45

Very good review. If only I could read it clearly, I didn't recognize the lighter red/green graphs AT ALL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daltonism
Deuteranomaly (most common - 6% of males, 0.4% of females): Having a mutated form of the medium-wavelength (green) pigment. The medium-wavelength pigment is shifted towards the red end of the spectrum resulting in a reduction in sensitivity to the green area of the spectrum. Unlike protanomaly the intensity of colors is unchanged. This is the most common form of color blindness, making up about 6% of the male population.

6% of the audience is quite a lot so I'd suggest to deffer from using low contrast red/green in graphs for people like us so we can enjoy the reviews without straining our eyes

boiled_elephant · 24th Dec 2008, 06:18

That's a singularly unfortunate condition to have if you're into computers and websites

can't you adjust your monitor to bypass the problem?

@article, it's nice to know I'll be able to slap another 1Gb 4870 alongside this one in a year's time and get an insane boost. Food for thought, though it'll have to wait till my next overdraft comes through. Free money for the cake...

thehippoz · 24th Dec 2008, 06:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrei

Very good review. If only I could read it clearly, I didn't recognize the lighter red/green graphs AT ALL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daltonism
Deuteranomaly (most common - 6% of males, 0.4% of females): Having a mutated form of the medium-wavelength (green) pigment. The medium-wavelength pigment is shifted towards the red end of the spectrum resulting in a reduction in sensitivity to the green area of the spectrum. Unlike protanomaly the intensity of colors is unchanged. This is the most common form of color blindness, making up about 6% of the male population.

6% of the audience is quite a lot so I'd suggest to deffer from using low contrast red/green in graphs for people like us so we can enjoy the reviews without straining our eyes

called darwinism

nice article.. the msi overclocking comp in taiwan looked pretty cool too

17th Dec 2008, 13:46	#1
Tim S Pewlius Caesar bit-tech Staff Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Ascot, Berks Posts: 18,021	Core i7 Christmas '08 Graphics Performance http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...e-on-core-i7/1 The last few weeks have been full of blood, sweat and BIOS revisions in the bit-tech benchmarking sweatshop. We've been feverishly putting our new Core i7-based graphics card test systems together and now we're here to report how the graphics landscape is reforming itself. __________________ Tim on Twitter \| Tim's Blog \| Tim's Flickr The bit-tech Blog \| bit-tech on Twitter \| Join the bit-tech & Custom PC folding team (#35947)

17th Dec 2008, 14:30	#2
wuyanxu quad fuelled, GTX200 powered Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: in a room near Soton Uni. UK Posts: 3,940	it's just too evenly matched. to be honest, the only difference is which driver/utility set the customer prefers. will there be a AVIO vs Badaboom encoding soon? with ATI also starting to release stream processor applications, nVidia no longer have that advantage. __________________ Death to consolification !!!Core i7 860 @ 4Ghz Cooled by Corsair H50 // Asus P7P55D Deluxe // 8GB of Corsair Dominators @ 1528Mhz 8-8-8-24 // BFG gtx260+ OC2 MaxCore 216SP 896MB // Samsung 64GB SSD // WD Raptor 74GB + Black 1TB + Green 1TB // Corsair Hx620w // Antec p182 // Samsung 24" T240

17th Dec 2008, 14:48	#4
Tim S Pewlius Caesar bit-tech Staff Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Ascot, Berks Posts: 18,021	It is something that we are definitely looking to do, yes! I'd like to look at the various GPU accelerated encoders. __________________ Tim on Twitter \| Tim's Blog \| Tim's Flickr The bit-tech Blog \| bit-tech on Twitter \| Join the bit-tech & Custom PC folding team (#35947)

17th Dec 2008, 15:18	#6
Xtrafresh Blame it on the Boogie Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Nijmegen, Holland Posts: 1,909	Looks like you guys are really properly set up , great article I really liked the "4870 vs 260" graphs, very helpful! I recently got my grubby fingers on a 4870 1GB, and i'm glad i did __________________ AXGS Blog: A fresh look at P55. Fresh Fusion: Unfinished \| FFF: Name change and text update 19-11

17th Dec 2008, 15:18	#7
Bauul Sir Bongaminge Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Godalming, near Guildford Posts: 1,553	I dunno, all those benchmarks are fine and all, but some more games and cards would have been nice... (k/g! Awesome job guys, now go enjoy Christmas and stop working so late) __________________ Pentium 4 CPU 3.4 Ghz \| 1Gb + 2x512Mb Corsair DDR2 667 Mhz Sapphire Radeon HD 4770 512Mb\| WD Raptor 36Gb, Seagate 300Gb \| Asus P5LD2 SE Ibanez RG 470 Japanese Edition \| 1991 Japanese Lo-TRS Tremolo \| V7 S1 Custom V8 HSH Pickups

17th Dec 2008, 15:15	#5
Floyd Sniipes Brother Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: USA Posts: 82	I still love my 8800GTs Good performance at a steal of a price!

17th Dec 2008, 16:25	#8
stoff3r Multimodder Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 86	wow lots of work it seems ! The test results didn't surprise any of us i think. Now, the waiting for the next-gen graphics has commenced, as this generation hardly shows us any real performance booms. Also: it's common courtesy to pitty/laugh at, those who bought the Radeon 4870 512mb :/

17th Dec 2008, 18:13	#9
MiNiMaL_FuSS I Mod, Therefore I Own Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Norwich, Norfolk, UK Posts: 3,067	my 3870 is starting to look quite shabby, having said that i generally game at 1440x900 and havn't noticed any problem on the lastest titels....the old girl got some life yet? __________________ -Yesterday is History, Tomorrow is a Mystery, Take the Present as a Gift-

17th Dec 2008, 19:17	#10
Jasio Made in Canada Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: BC Posts: 450	Tim, thanks for the very thorough comparison of GPU's... much appreciated. The step-by-step comparisons and relative percentage gains/losses were particularly informative and insightful. Reviews such as these are the main reason I stick around this site over the US based websites. __________________ [[Asus P6T \| Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.67Ghz cooled by Noctua UH-P12 Push-Pull Config \| 6GB DDR3-1600 Patriot Viper Xtreme XMP C8 \| nVidia GeForce 280 GTX 1GB \| Corsair HX620 620 Watt PSU \| Antec P182 Case]]

17th Dec 2008, 23:26	#11
Evildead666 Multimodder Join Date: May 2004 Location: Paris Posts: 134	Thanks a lot A nice comparison. I came back to ATi with my 4870 1Gb and i'm happy I did. 830MHz core stock cooler all day long ( at 50%) The 260+ is looking like a better and better choice every day the price comes down tho.... Well, i'm rooting for the next gen fight now ;-)

18th Dec 2008, 08:45	#12
p3n Hypermodder Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 735	Those compairson graphs hurt my head :<

18th Dec 2008, 13:43	#14
PureSilver Doesn't know his RSS from his elbow Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: London, UK Posts: 608	My God, that's a lot of graphs! Brilliant review, as ever... __________________ Intel Core i7 920 @ 3Ghz, Noctua NH-U12P SE1366, Asus P6T Deluxe, Corsair TR3X6G1600C8D @ XMP, XFX GTX-280, Samsung SpinPoint F1 640GB, Corsair TX850W, Lian-Li V1000B+ with 3x Noctua NF-P12 & NZXT Sentry LX 2.4Ghz 13" unibody MacBook, 4GB RAM & 128GB SSD

24th Dec 2008, 01:45	#15
Andrei What's a Dremel? Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 2	Very good review. If only I could read it clearly, I didn't recognize the lighter red/green graphs AT ALL. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daltonism Deuteranomaly (most common - 6% of males, 0.4% of females): Having a mutated form of the medium-wavelength (green) pigment. The medium-wavelength pigment is shifted towards the red end of the spectrum resulting in a reduction in sensitivity to the green area of the spectrum. Unlike protanomaly the intensity of colors is unchanged. This is the most common form of color blindness, making up about 6% of the male population. 6% of the audience is quite a lot so I'd suggest to deffer from using low contrast red/green in graphs for people like us so we can enjoy the reviews without straining our eyes