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 285.62, AMD Catalyst 11.9

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.

Noe that there's no particular difference between 1GB and 2GB variants of GeForce GTX 560, just 2%. For this reason, we'll just provide the results of a 1GB product.

Final thoughts

We've recently switched to a simpler rating system and now we only have two of those: capability and usability. The capability rating compares each graphics card with GeForce GT 430 which is considered a baseline, or 100%. The rating is based on both synthetic and gaming results and shows, as the name implies, what a product is capable of.

The usability rating is obtained by dividing each card's capability rating by its price. It basically shows whether a given product is over or underpriced, considering what it can do, and thus how reasonable it is to buy it.

The complete ratings can be found in our i3Dspeed. Below are just the parts relevant to today's review.

Sorted by capability (high to low)

Being more expensive, GeForce GTX 560 loses to Radeon HD 6870. GeForce GTS 450 is almost on par with rivals, while both GeForce GT 430 and 440 are outsiders, yielding even to Radeon HD 6570. Finally, Radeon HD 6850 does well against the competing products.

Sorted by usability (high to low)

As you can see, Radeon HD 6850 is the most useful, and GeForce cards are somewhat overpriced. Now let's say a few words about each product we reviewed today.

AFOX GeForce GTX 560 2GB (AF560-2048D5H1) is a custom card with 2GB of video memory. Not that games require this much though (except for Battlefield 3 maybe). Anyway, one drawback is that the cooler is noisy by default, because its minimal speed is set too high in BIOS. But you can adjust it in the drivers.

AFOX GeForce GTS 450 1GB (AF450-1024D5H2) is another custom product, but the cooler isn't great, being noisy and impossible to control. Also make sure the card comes with the correct firmware.

AFOX Radeon HD 6850 1GB LP (AF6850-1024D5L1) is an original, custom solution that needs no supplementary power. The cooler is also not great which is kind of sad, because the card is nice overall.

AFOX GeForce GT 440 D5 1GB (AF440-1024D5H1) is a decent card, but you need to check its clock rates to make sure you haven't just purchased an underclocked OEM version.

AFOX GeForce GT 430 1GB LP (AF430-1024D3L2) is an inexpensive card, although it should be even cheaper. It's generally nice, but the cooler is too thick and doesn't fit into one expansion slot.

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