Test Setup

I am currently unable to do the frame rating/frame pacing testing that Ryan does.  It simply costs a lot of money to get that setup.  Instead, I have used the more traditional testing of FPS across multiple applications and benchmarks.  In this context, it certainly does not invalidate these results.  Ryan covers every new GPU with the frame rating suite, so if a reader is curious about those results, they can find them on this site.

I recently changed from the AMD test system to the Intel based i7 3770K.  This CPU certainly pushes even high end graphics cards and gives us a better look at their theoretical performance.  I also started testing in only 1920×1200 and 2560×1600.

I test the cards in a rather large case, instead of an open air workstation.  I believe this is more representative of most usage scenarios, and the controlled airflow does provide positive results when it comes to thermals.

I also utilized the MSI R7970 Lightning and MSI R7870 HAWK cards in CrossFire with the Asus cards to see how scaling goes up to 2560×1600.  AMD has yet to release a driver that will enable frame pacing for Eyefinity resolutions.

I compare these cards to the NVIDIA GTX 770 and GTX 760.

Intel i7 3770K

Gigabyte G1 Sniper 3

GSkill 2 x 4GB DDR-3 1866

WD 1 TB Caviar Black HD

Lite-On BDR

Enermax Fulmo GT Case

Corsair AX1200 Power Supply

Windows 7 64 Bit

AMD Catalyst 13.12 Drivers

NVIDIA 331.82 Drivers

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