DiRT 3 GPU & CPU Performance Test

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http://www.techspot.com/review/403-dirt-3-performance/

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Well after reading this I was somewhat confused, so I ran the ingame benchmark myself a couple of times, it was the 'Aspen' track on both occasions and my avg minimum framerates were 97.7 and 97.5 respectively and that was only with an EVGA GTX460 FTW 1gb, i5 2500k cpu@4.2ghz, and 8gb ram. Somewhat different from the scores you obtained.

Ok, my bad, I'll always admit, when I get it wrong, after discovering the discrepencies in our findings, I went back and re-checked my settings, I didnt realise the 'ULTRA' settings were available (ooops) and everything had been only set to 'high'. I adjusted everything i could to the highest possible (ie ULTRA where available) and re - ran the benchmark, achieving a very different 50.1 avg minimum fps. My apologies for doubting your findings earlier.

What resolution are the CPU-bound tests run at?

Interesting results. I run this benchmark the other day and with VSync on @ 1920x1200 I got an average of 60FPS (due to VSync being on of course it couldn't be any higher). I'll test again tonight with VSync off but I find it strange that my results are so much higher than yours considering I also had the highest level of AA enabled. (whereas you had x4)

Here are my Specs:
i5 2500K (not overclocked yet)
Asus P8P67 Motherboard
2x4Gb Corsair 1666Mhz RAM
MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin FROZR II - (stock settings for the card, albeit overclocked vs. a ref 560)

I used the latest BETA Nvidia drivers (275.27's) as well.

As mentioned, I will re-run the test tonight without VSync and will provide a screenshot as evidence.

Hello!

Why is the Radeon 5850 not in the list of tested graphic cards?
The 5830 and 5870 are there so I don't get the point why we're missing the 5850.
After Sapphire's unresistable offer (Radeon 5850 Xtreme) I'm dying to see its performance compared to the new gen cards...
Such a pity...

Peter

for my gamepad apollo doesn`t see it, and control is fail.

Nice one Steven,

Good to see the old 58XX is still going strong, seems it gives the newer 69XX a hard time.
Wondering how the old Penryn Quad would do with its massive 12MB cache.
The time of Dual Cores is over!

What I actually would like to see is a comparison between a console and PC maxed out, at least we can see where we spend our hard earned bucks (or Euro's) on.

Seems I made the same mistake WARDOGZ did, never knew the game was running on High (Automatic chose High settings for me).

I get 56FPS with Ultra settings @ 1920x1200 and x4AA which is very similar to what you guys posted. Game definately looks and runs very well

Mmm, with VSync on it runs just as well, 1fps on average less, lowest FPS difference is 2. Definately worth leaving this setting on. (as you get no 'tearing')

can any one explain why this is the only game I've seen where the 2600k isn't the best chip?

Sometimes newer isn't always better?

Great review Steven. Glad to see Eyefinity resolutions included. Techspot is one of the few that keeps upping the ante for multi-monitor testing

Quick question, any idea if Catalyst 11.5b hotfix has any impact on Dirt 3 performance for AMD cards?

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalyst115bhotfix.aspx

Why would these guys do a GPU test with this game over Witcher 2?

Suprising results for the sandy bridge, i didnt even expect that. i know the Core 2 are outdated but i might want to see a Q9550 or somethign in the mix next time, unless you dont have any on hand

Why wouldn't they? no really, I'm curious why you would say that. Is Witcher 2 supposed to be very demanding GPU wise?

They are not as interesting as they are accurate but I am happy that you did retest and noticed the ultra settings.

You know how fast the Radeon HD 5870 and 5830 are in relation to the 5850 so do you really need another card clogging up the graphs?

Its personal preference, some like to go well beyond 60fps such as myself and I don’t seem to get the tearing either.

Unfortunately no I cannot. I ran the test several times and could not work it out, the 2600K is a much faster processor so I am not sure why the game did not take to that platform.

It was meant to but I tested well before that driver was released sorry.

If the question is why, then the answer is we have. If the question is why not yet then the answer is the game was unfinished when released and we waited for the first patch which allowed us to play full screen and boosted performance.

It’s actually quite incredible really, DX9 only and easily one of the best games I have ever seen (visual quality wise). The game itself puts me to sleep though, not an RPG fan

mine is crashing with directx 11...=(

@ 1920 x 1200...

HD 5850 = 50 FPS

Not an RPG fan either, but if its that good, I think I will give it a go.

*** nevermind...much too Dungeon and Dragony looking.