Far Cry 3 Tested, Benchmarked

(hitman absolution even more demanding than far cry 3 @ maxed settings..)
despite fc3 a gaming evolved title amd cards are bit behind than kepler counterparts..
I hope amd brings out another performance driver for far cry 3 similar as nv 2nd fc3 perf driver 310.70..

I inquired this on amd tech support yesterday,waiting what reply they will give..

but I am getting 60 fps vsync on in fc3 with 2500k+7950B+8 gb c.vengeance(everything on ULTRA,post fx medium,4xaa,ambience occlusion on SSAO) with no overclock on cpu/gpu with 12.11 beta 11 cap2

but nicely done bench...thankS
 
The beauty of HD7950 cards (boosted or non-boosted) is that they overclock like screamers. Give her a go Guest. You can net 20-25% overclock beyond 950mhz with a voltage bump up to 1.25V. Just be mindful of GPU and VRM temperatures. Let me know if you need help with MSI Afterburner unofficial unlock/voltage unlocking for your 7950 card.
 
And the comedy comment of the day goes to...

Try reading the graphs again, the i7 3770K at 3.5Ghz gets 70fps while the FX 8350 at 4.5Ghz gets... 70fps

lol I think we found a bigger fanboy than the other dude crying about the Nv 690 not being in the reviews. He was mad that the radeon Ghz edition was at the top of all the charts....

This is the third time some Ahole has taken a stab at me on a performance review just because I wanted to see charts of the 690. Click on "Ultra" then tell me who is on top for every single resolution? I saw the 7990's performance on other sites, but since it was never released by AMD I understand that it wasn't ever included here. The 690, however, was officially released.
 
I just wish that older Core2 quads are thrown into the mix (CPU scaling)...
I agree, it would have been very interesting to see how a Core 2 Quad stacks up against AMD's FX processors.

From 3.5GHz to 4.5GHz the i7 gained only 5 fps. In the same clock range the FX gained 13 fps. This comment: "It's interesting to note that the FX-8350 at 4.5GHz was only able to match the Core i7-3770K at 3.5GHz." is very biased and unsuitable for a serious tech site. Combined with the driver "choice" towards a better nVidia performance (or worse AMD performance) makes this test less trustworthy. Very, very biased against AMD. :-(

For the CPU part i7 scales poorly with clock speed. FX scales much better. Make them both run at 5GHz and see the FX outperform the i7 (if i7-3770K would ever run at 5GHz).
Welcome to Techspot Jesper, I will try to be a bit more preceptive than my fellow TS friends :)
The fact that the AMD FX scaled more than the Intel CPU simply means that with the Intel CPU the game is not bottelnecked by the CPU, but instead by the graphics card.
This is a good thing since then you are getting the maximum performance possible from the card.
Also look at these numbers:
Core i7 2.5Ghz gives 65fps, it takes 4Ghz for the AMD FX-8350 to match that!
 
And the comedy comment of the day goes to...

Try reading the graphs again, the i7 3770K at 3.5Ghz gets 70fps while the FX 8350 at 4.5Ghz gets... 70fps

Did you read the graphs?

At 3.5GHz the i7 managed 70fps. At 4.5GHz it only managed 75fps. That's poor scalability. Very poor.

The FX gained 13fps within the same span. If you OC both by 500MHz the FX will do better than the i7.
 
The fact that the AMD FX scaled more than the Intel CPU simply means that with the Intel CPU the game is not bottelnecked by the CPU, but instead by the graphics card.

If the performance was really bottlenecked by the GFX there shouldn't be a performance difference with the different clock speeds on the i7. But there is. A very tiny one compared to the great jumps in clock speed. That's poor scalability.
 
If the performance was really bottlenecked by the GFX there shouldn't be a performance difference with the different clock speeds on the i7. But there is. A very tiny one compared to the great jumps in clock speed. That's poor scalability.


Come back once you sober up mate and can make sense of the numbers.
 
Hi,
Is this with SSAO, HBAO or HDAO? Because with 4x msaa with the latest drivers using gtx 680 on 1920x1080 and HDAO I get not as good average FPS as here, I got dips nearly all the time to 40-46..
What transparency AA? thx
 
Lol Jesper isn't it past your bed time?

Didnt' anyone teach you brand loyalty and making stuff up is for children and fanboys!

How does a 4Ghz 8350 only matching a 2.5Ghz i7 equal poor scaling for intel?
 
This is the third time some Ahole has taken a stab at me on a performance review just because I wanted to see charts of the 690. Click on "Ultra" then tell me who is on top for every single resolution? I saw the 7990's performance on other sites, but since it was never released by AMD I understand that it wasn't ever included here. The 690, however, was officially released.

Funny thing is I wasn't even talking about you it was the other guy.

But thank you for showing the rest of us that you are in that same camp.
 
Funny thing is I wasn't even talking about you it was the other guy.

But thank you for showing the rest of us that you are in that same camp.
Link the post. I want to see if you're BSing me or if there actually is another person "in that same camp". Truth be told, I was an AMD guy, until BC2 and BF3 crashed every time I wanted to play the game. That's why when I upgraded, I got the 680 instead of the 7970.
 
Link the post. I want to see if you're BSing me or if there actually is another person "in that same camp". Truth be told, I was an AMD guy, until BC2 and BF3 crashed every time I wanted to play the game. That's why when I upgraded, I got the 680 instead of the 7970.

I will go back and find the poster name later but I assure you it wasn't you. And lets use some logic here I play both BC2 and BF3 and been on a Radeon 6970 since launch and I had no crashing. So maybe the issue isn't the radeons and something else in your system.

You are going to have to make a better argument than one game crashing if you are trying to say the NV cards are more stable then the AMD cards in those two games.

Reminds me of one of my boys during the Windows XP era, whenever the system was unable he would just format and reinstall windows instead of trying to fix the problem.

So what trouble shooting did you so you can place the blame purely on the radeons?
 
I will go back and find the poster name later but I assure you it wasn't you. And lets use some logic here I play both BC2 and BF3 and been on a Radeon 6970 since launch and I had no crashing. So maybe the issue isn't the radeons and something else in your system.

You are going to have to make a better argument than one game crashing if you are trying to say the NV cards are more stable then the AMD cards in those two games.

Reminds me of one of my boys during the Windows XP era, whenever the system was unable he would just format and reinstall windows instead of trying to fix the problem.

So what trouble shooting did you so you can place the blame purely on the radeons?

You're making me sound like I have no idea what I'm doing. I tried everything to get my 6970 to work, but the card just would not play BC2 for longer than 20 minutes without crashing. I reseated the card, installed latest drivers, searched forums for fixes, and I even put the card into a different system with the same results. I was fine with BC2 crashing because at least I could play it for 20-30minutes, but BF3 didn't play longer than 3 minutes. That card was an "upgrade" from SLI 460s (temps entirely too high on a micro atx board). I never had these problems with my 460s. Maybe I was just unlucky and got a dead card. I have had absolutely zero problems with my 680. It's worked like a dream since I installed it back in July. I'm not an nvidia fanboy, I just want to see what the two monster cards can do (690/7990). It's nice seeing how games scale in sli and crossfire.
 
You're making me sound like I have no idea what I'm doing. I tried everything to get my 6970 to work, but the card just would not play BC2 for longer than 20 minutes without crashing. I reseated the card, installed latest drivers, searched forums for fixes, and I even put the card into a different system with the same results. I was fine with BC2 crashing because at least I could play it for 20-30minutes, but BF3 didn't play longer than 3 minutes. That card was an "upgrade" from SLI 460s (temps entirely too high on a micro atx board). I never had these problems with my 460s. Maybe I was just unlucky and got a dead card. I have had absolutely zero problems with my 680. It's worked like a dream since I installed it back in July. I'm not an nvidia fanboy, I just want to see what the two monster cards can do (690/7990). It's nice seeing how games scale in sli and crossfire.

RMA
 
ghasmanjr,

I have to agree with Lionvibez. I actually sold my HD6950 to a person who said he only wanted to play BF3 with them. As I tell all the people to whom I sell my cards, they have 7 days to return the card to me if it has problems or crashes or doesn't work. My 6950 was unlocked to 6970 too using the shader BIOS mod. He said it ran BF3 just fine on his system. 1 month later I inquired how the card is doing, and he said it is running beautifully. I myself tested BF3 on my 6950 briefly and it ran without any stability problems. Maybe you had an unstable card (the voltage wasn't high enough), maybe your driver install got corrupted and needed an OS re-install, maybe you had a system wide compatibility issue with the card (it happens)? I can tell HD6950 works perfectly fine in terms of stability in BF3.

Regarding GTX690 vs. HD7990, maybe a separate round-up can be made for those 2 that includes triple monitor gaming. I can't see many people spending $1000 to play at 1080/1200P on these 2. Also, this comparison could go into a lot more details such as micro-stutter and how it can be alleviated using Radeon Pro, etc. I think it really requires a separate article for a good comparison with high resolutions, AA and multi-monitors. I can't see either of those options being good though at the end of this generation and also because GTX670 SLI/HD7970 CF cost significantly less now (You can get either setup for about $750).
 
Truth be told, I was an AMD guy, until BC2 and BF3 crashed every time I wanted to play the game. That's why when I upgraded, I got the 680 instead of the 7970.
Actually I have to agree somewhat, AMD didn't put out decent drivers for the 7970 until several months after release and Crossfire support was non-existent. BF3 never crashed for me though. But the drivers are much, much better now and CF scaling is approaching 100% in games such as BF3 which is hugely impressive.
 
"NVIDIA introduced the updated video card driver GeForce 310.70 , which at the request of the press release in the game do increase to 38%. This figure is most likely derived from the last release version drivers, and performance relative to the beta itself has not changed at 310.64"

Looks like with the latest drivers installed and Caps in place, the performance between HD7970 vs. GTX670 and HD7970 Ghz and GTX680 is practically indistinguishable:

http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/far-cry-3-v-102-test-gpu.html
 
You're making me sound like I have no idea what I'm doing. I tried everything to get my 6970 to work, but the card just would not play BC2 for longer than 20 minutes without crashing. I reseated the card, installed latest drivers, searched forums for fixes, and I even put the card into a different system with the same results. I was fine with BC2 crashing because at least I could play it for 20-30minutes, but BF3 didn't play longer than 3 minutes. That card was an "upgrade" from SLI 460s (temps entirely too high on a micro atx board). I never had these problems with my 460s. Maybe I was just unlucky and got a dead card. I have had absolutely zero problems with my 680. It's worked like a dream since I installed it back in July. I'm not an nvidia fanboy, I just want to see what the two monster cards can do (690/7990). It's nice seeing how games scale in sli and crossfire.

Sorry for making it seem like that but there was no details in your post about the actual issue and what you did to try and resolve it. It just came across as I switch cards and now I have no issues and the guy above me is correct sounds like you had a bad card an a RMA was neccessary.

And it may also have been a heat issue if you kept crashing 20-30 mins. I always replace the stock cooler on my videocards so I've yet to run into crashing due to heat. I really don't trust some of the generic crap they put on for coolers on some of the cards.

While I agree it is nice to see what the $1000 dual card setups can do they are a minority due to how expensive they are and the other issues SLI/Xfire bring so I can see why they would leave it out to simplify the testing.
 
Actually I have to agree somewhat, AMD didn't put out decent drivers for the 7970 until several months after release and Crossfire support was non-existent. BF3 never crashed for me though. But the drivers are much, much better now and CF scaling is approaching 100% in games such as BF3 which is hugely impressive.

He was talking about crashing in BC2 and BF3 with the 6xxx radeons not the 7xxx series.
 
Hi,
Is this with SSAO, HBAO or HDAO? Because with 4x msaa with the latest drivers using gtx 680 on 1920x1080 and HDAO I get not as good average FPS as here, I got dips nearly all the time to 40-46..
What transparency AA? thx

this review tests with SSAO. they use enhanced A2C which is the highest alpha coverage setting. HDAO provides the best image quality. AMD cards run better with HDAO in Farcry 3. look at PCGH, gamegpu and hardocp

http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/far-cry-3-v-102-test-gpu.html
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Far-C...y-3-Test-Grafikkarten-CPU-Benchmarks-1036726/
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/12/05/far_cry_3_video_card_performance_preview/2
 
AMD cards run better with HDAO in Farcry 3. look at PCGH...
Back to quoting the same review that's using an old Nvidia driver not fully optimized for HDAO? I thought I'd put you straight on that earlier.
...gamegpu
Technically the four HDAO benches they ran are all unplayable, and of those four, the highest res/game iq (25x16/ HDAO+8xMSAA) actually favours the GTX 680 by a solitary fps
...and hardocp
Not overly definitive (hence the preview status), and not exactly a slam dunk at the max playable settings for CrossfireX I would say:
We've talked about this before, and it is very true here, that GTX 680 SLI was smoother, I.e. no stutter, no choppiness, no lag, no "micro stutter" as we played at this setting. Yet, with 7970 GHz Edition CrossFire we definitely felt it stuttering. It doesn't show up in framerate, but it was very blatant and obvious as we moved about the game at this setting on 7970 GHz Edition CrossFire.

A couple of points:
The 7970GE is generally a faster board than the 680, so it should perform better, and secondly, FC3 as an AMD Gaming Evolved title really should be showing a clean pair of heels to the 680, especially since Nvidia were scrambling to get a driver out to utilize an AMD developed feature (HDAO). Hope you get that Sunnyvale internship you're angling for.
 
UPDATE :: in previous post I told that I inquired amd,this is the reply:

Response and Service Request History:
We do have our Engineers working on driver improvements for Far Cry, so that should hopefully be available through either a newer 12.11Beta or the 12.12 release coming later this month. I know that it is being viewed as a priority concern, so we are working on improvements for this driver suite currently. We appreciate your concern and I have forwarded these comments to our Catalyst team. Thank you for supporting AMD!
In order to update this service request, please respond, leaving the service request reference intact.
Best regards,
AMD Global Customer Care
 
Great job!! Very detailed and well explained! Thank you!! One of the greatest articles on benchmarking! Keep up the good work!
 
Hi Blue Falcon .

I use a 7950 dual X and afterburner. I Oc her to 1000 1400 without voltage change. I try to increase but no stability . I m not able to incresea more . What do you think about it cause I read I could up to 1125 and 1600 with 20% more volt but unstable like hell .

I m looking for play ultra 4x MSAA HDAO withtout sync V. Actually I run 45 - 55 fps with huge frames loss at 30 when I m near sea or when I look a large landscape and sometimes freezes of 10 seconds and frames loss while 5 seconds after that.I see an advice to decrease shadows to High and msaa *2 I need some tips to obtain a "60fps stable" if possible

Many thanks in advance

I3570K 3,4 Ghz Asus P8z77-V
Hd 7950 dual X Lg 32' Television
8 go ram 1600 Intel SSD 180 Go
 
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