Benchmark Results: Batman: Arkham Asylum
Despite the fact that it’s a very attractive game, Batman enables very playable performance numbers all the way through 2560x1600. The Radeon HD 4870 and GeForce GTX 260 nobly do battle, both outperforming the Radeon HD 5770. ATI’s Radeon HD 5750 is edged out by the GeForce GTS 250—hardly a surprise given this game’s TWIMTBP status.
But the real shocker happens when you enable PhysX in this one. All of the Radeon-based configurations are instantly kneecapped by the technology, while the Nvidia cards see performance roughly halved (though performance is still plenty playable).
I debated the impact of these results as I ran through Batman’s in-game benchmark. On one hand, it’s absolutely frustrating to see performance slow to a crawl in scenes where there is clearly zero benefit to having PhysX enabled. On the other, the use of physics effects in-game is much more compelling. Whether or not this is the future of hardware accelerated physics remains to be seen (if history has taught us anything, the answer is almost assuredly ‘no’). But this is the present. And at present, Batman is made tangibly better by PhysX effects and virtually impossible to play with those settings enabled on an ATI-based card.
Of course, the real value of Nvidia’s competitive advantage—again, at present—has to be weighed against ATI’s support for DirectX 11 (a negligible benefit, currently), Eyefinity (much more exciting for guys like me who run three displays), and bitstreaming HD audio in an HTPC (a reason to buy a second card for the living room).
on the test setup page;
"Corsair Dominator 4GB (3 x 2GB)"
shouldn't it be 2 x 2GB?
shouldn't these cards be able to overclock well, considering how energy efficient they are?
Where's my 5830?
The procesor bottle neck test you presented is just horrible!
For reasons readers will never know is why you left out AA in some of the bottle neck tests but added AA in some the previous benchmarks. For example on page 8 testsing farcry2 had test with AAx4 but not on the CPU bottle neck test, which is what you SHOULD be tsting for!
AA/AF uses the CPU where the graphics card can't handle it and for whatever reason you will come up with to answer me, i think you are simply trying to advertise the Core i5-750 CPU as some sort of incredible cpu that doesn't need overclocking. Are you being paid to do this on purpose are are you just really that shit at making decent review?
umm AA/AF is done purely on the graphics card.
So you're saying that someone forking out small money for a mid range gfx card sees the value in supporting three monitors? Sorry but I really can't see that proposition!
And the DX11 support to me seems a red herring too. Bit-Tech gave a more luke-warm reception and I have to say that I agree with them. DX11 is hardly a sell if the card can only just keep up with the upper-mid range in DX10? Its not like DX11 is going to increase FPS.....
Bitstreaming? Don't know enough to comment!
Thanks Chris.
Another good article.
Although Intel won't want to hear your last sentence I am sure AMD wins either way.
I think that was eskimo's point .. .wasn't it? Be happy with the Q3 earnings report.
We have long know that money spent on better graphics (or a second graphics card in SLI / CF) once you have a quad core runnng at around 3Ghz (Intel i7 or AMD Phenom II) gives much better value return for gaming than anything else.
wheres the overclocking?
Its not like DX11 is going to increase FPS.....Bitstreaming? Don't know enough to comment!
There's already battleforge out there that renders using dx11 subroutines, etc thats showing increase in fps over the dx10 version. So technically, its a game that's taking advantage of a dx11 feature to get higher fps.
http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15721/1/
@ Anonymous 13/10/2009 16:37
Perhaps some of the people "forking out small money for a mid range gfx card" are in the market purely for a 3-monitor setup that previously they'd have to use multiple cards for? I don't know.
I would buy a 5770 for an HTPC (the idle power rating / core clock look pretty good to me) but not for anything else.
shouldn't these cards be able to overclock well, considering how energy efficient they are?
Yup. They should.
Worth noting ATI cards seem to have a lot of problems with decoding video streams - in particular there is an open problem with Win7 MCE and BBC HD over satellite.
@ anon
im pretty sure one of the big selling points of dx11 is how much more efficent it is, and how it can offer incresed performance with a higher level of visual fidelity.
so having a dx11 card will most likely prove to allow for higher framerates than a game run with a higher spec dx 10 only card.
I bought this card. My x1950 bit the dust in my last move, and I need a replacement under $200. My mobo only supports a single card, and this is probably the only upgrade I'll do for 2 years or more. At that point, my CPU will likely be a bottleneck (core 2 duo 2.1ghz, overclockable to 2.8 or so).
My thoughts: Of single card setups under $200, this one seems like the best long term value. Especially overclocked, it's as powerful as anything else at this price point, and it has DX11 support. It killed me that I bought my x1950, only to have DX10 come out and instantly obsolete my card... the 5770 won't have that problem. I recognize that I'm giving up a few fps in the short term, but in the long term... this card will be competitive for a longer time in its field.
i have a 5750 and i have oc it to gpu clock 750 and memory clock to 1250 when the card is at 97 % activity the card gets up to 64C! is that dangerous and can destroy my card?
The cards are entirely overclockable dependant on your current CPU/PSU set-up. I would advise buying an aftermarket cooling system also as the card can get incredibly hot when you unleash its potential! I myself have a 5770 and agree that it is a powerful card when combo with a good processor (e.g i5 or higher) excells in performance. And as for the price tag, its also very nice to look at for around £100 for the card (Even lower for the 5750) it is a very wise investment to make for any gaming enthusiast that doesn't want to rape their wallet.