Civilization V GPU & CPU Performance In-depth

Another good in depth comparison, well done techspot. It's just a shame it's 'turn based RTS' I really don't like that, I'd honestly prefer to play chess =/

I'm running it at max settings with pretty good performance except an occasional flicker on a single tile that goes away when I zoom in/out. But admittedly I haven't gotten past 1500 AD on any of the games that I played.

Has anyone else had trouble even getting the game to run at 2560x1600? I'm using a GTX 280, and even just starting a new game, at that resolution the terrain is not drawn (being entirely black) and there is corruption and trails for dialog boxes etc...

Any resolution less than this is fine. I also tried dropping the detail down to medium, but that made no difference.

Incredibly heavy for this kind of game. Thanks, TS!

Glad I have a 5870...

@myrmidonks Glad I have a GTX 460 for almost half the price

Excellent comparison review as always. I just installed the game last night and looking forward to see how my GTX 460 SLI rig handles it. From this article, I believe I'll be fine.

@omnislip too bad for you dont think your "GTX 460" its up to the HD 5870... soo... im happy for you but just don compare it better go for a HD 5770 for that...

Awesome benchmarking guys as I am going to buy this game it will be interesting to compare your results with mine when I start playing. Any chance of doing the same with ArmA2 OA ?

Well not really, did you read the review?

"1920x1200 High Performance"

the GTX 460 destroys every ATI in there! and I think I can safely say thats usually the ideal Resolution that alot of gamers will be using, or lower.

So yeah, in this particular instance the GTX 460 is better than the HD5870.

But omnislip, I don't think the GTX460 will be as good at playing Crysis 2 as the HD5870

Although you could SLI it, wouldn't cost too much over a single HD5870 either.

Do we really need 30+ fps in a turn based strategy game?

@edison5do yeah, I know. I mean, when the non overclocked 460 beats 5850s most of the time, my Hawk really should be compared to a 5770. I wish I'd spent £100 on a HD 5870 so that It could come after a 460 in a gaming benchmark...

In my opinion poor ATI performance in this game is related to drivers and I should wait for new drivers or patches because I see no other reason.In my book at the same price point ATI beats NVidia in performance at every level,unless there's something fishy. But it's just my opinion...

I would generally agree with you with the exception of the GTX460 1GB. it really is better value than any of the ATI products, which i'm supprised about considering the rest of Nvidia's line up is rather shocking to say the least.

I'm compelled to agree with you

I don't have a 280 but from the same generation my 4890 and q6600 @3.2ghz runs the game really well on high quality 2560x1400. The only delays I see are waiting for the other players.. I do have the occasional lower res block show up later in the game (400 turns plus) but if I zoom in and out it goes away. I think it's because I only have 4gb of ram because my 8gb system doesn't do it.

I'm on a i7 @ 3.6 + 4890 so this game should run well aslong as I don't pump up the AA. However I'm on a SSD and would like to have seen if that will solve the texture caching issue?

Burty117, the rest of Fermi lineup is shocking to you? For example, GTX470 has been available for $250-270 on many occasions, a card that's generally a hair within HD5870 on average and costs $80-100 less.

The inferior performance of ATI cards has nothing to do with the drivers. NV's architecture is superior in DX11 games (more advanced Tessellation engine, gather4 instructions, etc.):

Besides BF:BC2 and Mafia 2, there are practically no DX11 games where 5850 beats a GTX470 or HD5870 beats a GTX480:

Lost Planet 2 - http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/lost_planet_2_gpu_performance_preview,6.html
Metro 2033 - http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/36477-gigabyte-geforce-gtx-470-super-overclock-review-12.html
Just Cause 2 - http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/nvidia-geforce-gtx-460_13.html#sect1
AvP - http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/nvidia-geforce-gtx-460_11.html#sect1

Then there are BattleForge, STALKER:CoP, Dirt 2, Civ5 and even Starcraft 2 (although not DX11).

While HD5000 series clearly dominates from the performance/watt perspective, ATI no longer has the better card in any price bracket. From a price/performance perspective, GTS450 > 5750, GTX460 768 > 5770, GTX460 1GB > 5850, GTX470 > 5870. The only card with no equals is the 5970.

With HD6000, ATI will come on top once again.

What happened with the 5970 tests? I'm interested in how it does. I'm thinking of getting one vs a 480, but it never seems to get reviews anywhere for any game.

anyone know off hand?