Performance tests

Testbed:

• Intel Core i7-975 3340 MHz CPU
• ASUS P6T Deluxe motherboard on the Intel X58 chipset
• 6GB of 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM from Corsair
• WD Caviar SE WD1600JD 160GB SATA HDD
• Tagan TG900-BZ 900W PSU
• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, DirectX 11
• 30" Dell 3007WFP monitor
• VSync disabled
• NVIDIA Drivers 270.61, AMD Catalyst 11.4 beta

Benchmarks:

• Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft) — DirectX 10.0, Shaders 4.0 (HDR), built-in benchmarking utility (the Middle level), maximum settings.
• Crysis Warhead (Crytek/EA) — Cargo, DirectX 10.0, Shaders 4.0, Very High settings, batch file, timedemo available by e-mail request.
• Colin McRae: DiRT 2 (Codemasters) — DirectX 11, Ultra High settings, run as follows: "dirt2.exe -benchmark example_benchmark.xml".
• Metro 2033 (4A Games/THQ) — DirectX 11, Super High settings, PhysX disabled, run from in game.
• Just Cause 2 (Avalanche Studios/Eidos Interactive) — DirectX 10.0, Super High settings, run from in game.
• Aliens vs. Predator (Rebellion/SEGA) — DirectX 11, Shaders 5.0, Very High settings, run from in game.
• F1 2010 (Codemasters) — DirectX 11, Ultra High settings, run as follows: "formulaone.exe -benchmark example_benchmark.xml". Game provided by NVIDIA.
• Tropics Benchmark 1.3 (Unigine) — DirectX 10.0, High settings.
• Heaven Benchmark 2.5 Pro (Unigine) — DirectX 11, High settings.
• 3DMark 11 (FutureMark) — DirectX 11, Performance settings.

We'd like to thank Unigine for helping us set up their benchmarks.

Final thoughts

We have repeatedly mentioned that Radeon HD 6850 is in the top five in terms of price/performance ratio. In turn, GeForce GTX 550 Ti is a bit too expensive and so it lags behind HD 6850 in our rating. But, in general, GTX 550 Ti is a good update of GTS 450, offering more bandwidth and higher clock rates.

AFox AF6850-1024D5H1 is an excellent HD 6850 and has everything to become a bestseller, including a very efficient cooler and a good set of output connectors.

AFox AF6850-1024D5S1 is a single-slot solution, but its cooler is noisy unless you slow it down manually. Also note that this card requires no supplementary power. This feature is quite unique, but you'll have to make sure your motherboard meets the 2.0 specs.

AFox AF550-1024D5H1 is a good GTX 550 Ti. It is compact enough, but still occupies two expansion slots due to its efficient cooler.

We express gratitude to AFox for the provided graphics cards. The PSU is provided by TAGAN, the monitor is provided by NVIDIA.

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