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For Call of Duty fans, developer Treyarch just delivered an early Christmas present when they released Black Ops II this week. As the ninth game in the Call of Duty franchise and the sequel to the 2010 game Black Ops, we are hoping to see something meaningfully new from Black Ops II. We say this because last year's release (Modern Warfare 3) was somewhat lackluster on the PC, and also because the competing franchise Medal of Honor: Warfighter has received mixed, if not poor reviews overall.
But we could be in luck as Black Ops II is the first game in the Call of Duty franchise to feature future warfare technology and the first to present branching storylines driven by player choice. But as usual, our main concern from a performance article perspective has to do with the game engine which has been slow to evolve over the years. The key changes to the game engine include a new technology called "reveal mapping" which improves texture blending by comparing tones between two textures before blending them together.
Lighting has also been improved and now includes HDR lighting, bounce lighting, self-shadowing, intersecting shadows, and various other improvements. On paper the upgrade also calls for the move to the DirectX 11 API for the PC version of the game. This means PC gamers should enjoy better visuals when compared to those using console versions.
User Comments: 42
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captainawesome said:
Why no GTX 660 (non-ti) . I'm currently considering this card or the 7950 from MSI (twin frozr) So that would have helped
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StaffSteve said:
Are you considering it solely to play Black Ops II or for a wide range of games? If Black Ops II is all you want to play the GeForce GTX 660 will work just fine, it was roughly 20% slower than the Ti version in Modern Warfare 3 and overall just 14% slower on average in the 16 games that we tested it with in or original review.
Based on those numbers you should see around 50fps at 2560x1600 and over 60fps at 1920x1200 when playing Black Ops II with the GeForce GTX 660.
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nVidia lovers... itīs time to assume that... 7970 wins all the battles, but on conclussions you put on first a nVidia 660... mmmmmmmm
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captainawesome said:
No I'm gonna play plenty of games. The only reason I'm considering the 7950 is because the retailer currently has a ~30% markdown on them. So it's around $344 instead of the $517 it usually costs in my country. The 660 is not my favorite choice but IS more within my budget
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StaffSteve said:No I'm gonna play plenty of games. The only reason I'm considering the 7950 is because the retailer currently has a ~30% markdown on them. So it's around $344 instead of the $517 it usually costs in my country. The 660 is not my favorite choice but IS more within my budget
Well then this isn't the article you want to read. You will want to read our GeForce GTX 660 review if you have not already. There you will want to compare the performance of the Radeon HD 7950 and GeForce GTX 660 to work out if the price difference in your country justifies the more expensive AMD card.
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Fortunately for this ATI Fanboy, the GTX 690 was not included in this test.
Perhaps Techspot should invest in one?
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StaffSteve said:Fortunately for this ATI Fanboy, the GTX 690 was not included in this test.
Perhaps Techspot should invest in one?
Why is that? Crossfire 7970's are faster and cheaper, but then so is a pair of GTX 680 SLI cards. The GTX 690 is a terrible buy, unless for some reason you must have a pair of GPU's on a single card.
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Why dont u guys test overclocking performance using a dual core processor such as an i3.the results may vary quite largely.
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ghasmanjr said:
nVidia lovers... itīs time to assume that... 7970 wins all the battles, but on conclussions you put on first a nVidia 660... mmmmmmmmWIns all battles? It completely matched the 680 at stock speeds. I think the ghz edition is complete crap. They had to release an uber overclocked version of the card just to barely beat the 680 (not in all games I might add). If Techspot used a 680 FTW card, I know it would destroy the 7970 ghz edition. I don't think Techspot should include factory overclocked cards from one manufacture and not the other, unless overclocking is the topic of the page.
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nVidia lovers... itīs time to assume that... 7970 wins all the battles, but on conclussions you put on first a nVidia 660... mmmmmmmm
WIns all battles? It completely matched the 680 at stock speeds. I think the ghz edition is complete crap. They had to release an uber overclocked version of the card just to barely beat the 680 (not in all games I might add). If Techspot used a 680 FTW card, I know it would destroy the 7970 ghz edition. I don't think Techspot should include factory overclocked cards from one manufacture and not the other, unless overclocking is the topic of the page.
Wow you bought that bait.....
You're a good fisherman guest lol
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ghasmanjr said:Wow you bought that bait.....
You're a good fisherman guest lol
Dammit. My statement still stands involving Techspot not using factory overclocked cards for reviews. If they do, then use a GTX680 FTW for a good comparison.
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Wow you bought that bait.....
You're a good fisherman guest lol
Dammit. My statement still stands involving Techspot not using factory overclocked cards for reviews. If they do, then use a GTX680 FTW for a good comparison.
Its a good point your brought up but why does it matter to you ?
Does it really bother u that the radeon is sitting at the top of the graph? Does the 7970 Ghz edition being 10% faster really make the GTX680 look that bad?
Does anyone with a GTX680 feel like they got a bad purchase ?
The battle of the top is seperated by 5-10 fps at most for the last 10 years. When I said you bought the bait he was fishing for people that favor NV or trolls.
Don't show your bias cause neither NV or AMD care about you personally they just want your money.
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1 person liked this |
I'll just leave this here for you guys enjoy.
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StaffSteve said:Dammit. My statement still stands involving Techspot not using factory overclocked cards for reviews. If they do, then use a GTX680 FTW for a good comparison.
I don't understand this... TechSpot is not using any factory overclocked graphics cards. The Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is an official AMD specification graphics card you can buy for $450. The GTX680 FTW is not a Nvidia spec graphics card, it is a factory overclocked product from EVGA.
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I don't understand this... TechSpot is not using any factory overclocked graphics cards. The Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is an official AMD specification graphics card you can buy for $450. The GTX680 FTW is not a Nvidia spec graphics card, it is a factory overclocked product from EVGA.
Agreed steve!
The Ghz edition is a stock card using reference clocks not factory overclocked. Most of EVGA cards are superclocked using higher than reference clocks.
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I stopped at MW2 and went to BFBC2... Afterwards on BF3, but at least CoDs receive actual support and bug fixes. EA DICE after the first patch, hasn't fix any serious glitch. Only balance adjustments which require no real work, but they do make the patch notes lists seem long. All devs moved onto BF4 and fast-made DLCs.
What I'm trying to say, CoD's way is now how these games will be moving forward, but if EA DICE is not willing to provide support ( many paid over 100$ ), the only option is to go back to CoD series. Also, don't expect vast improvements on BF4 either -like CoD.
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Wow, the graphics don't even look that good, especially considering the last time the CoD series graphics' were even updated. And, look at the frame rates they're getting. I get better on BF3/Crysis 2 with similar settings (MSAA 4x, high/very high, etc...), both games which look a heck of a lot more realistic/complex than the screenshots I've seen so far.
Then again, you can't compare what's become a modern arcade game to a 64-player battlefield, nor can you compare it to a work of graphical technical genius. Which is exactly why I will, again, be skipping this game.
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ghasmanjr said:I don't understand this... TechSpot is not using any factory overclocked graphics cards. The Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is an official AMD specification graphics card you can buy for $450. The GTX680 FTW is not a Nvidia spec graphics card, it is a factory overclocked product from EVGA.
The GHz edition is still an overclocked card. Either use overclocked variants of both cards or don't. It just seems misleading only presenting one version of the card, even if it is an official overclocked AMD card. AMD only released that card because of how poor the 7970 performed compared to the GTX680. If you are using "official cards", where is the GTX690?
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StaffSteve said:
That's quite a warped sense of reality that you have there. First of all how do you determine how much the GTX 680 should be overclocked since there is no official overclocked version? The 7970 GHz Edition costs $50 more than the standard card, we don't like that about it but its priced differently to the standard card and GHz Edition cards do exist.
Also what rubbish about AMD releasing the 7970 GHz Edition because of poor performance, they did it as a marketing move to draw more attention to the 7970 and help them sell even more. Based on our testing in 16 of the latest games the GeForce GTX 680 is 2% slower than the Radeon HD 7970 at 2560x1600 (though it is 1% faster at 1920x1200) and when compared to the GHz Edition the GTX 680 is 11% slower. That is using the latest drivers from both camps.
Forget the fact that the Radeon HD 7970 costs just $400 and the GeForce GTX 680 costs $470.
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No I'm gonna play plenty of games. The only reason I'm considering the 7950 is because the retailer currently has a ~30% markdown on them. So it's around $344 instead of the $517 it usually costs in my country. The 660 is not my favorite choice but IS more within my budget
How can you ignore the 7870?
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I bought my AMD HD7990 Ghz edition @ newEgg for $399..
I use a 2560 x 1440 monitor and BF plays perfectly on high settings. I really don't care about some arcade shoot'em up like COD, but even then with such an old engine and lack of real physics... why such horrible frames?
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What happened to the results from GTX 570? It is on the first page but not in the results :-( That's the card I own and was curious.
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StaffSteve said:What happened to the results from GTX 570? It is on the first page but not in the results :-( That's the card I own and was curious.
We have dropped it from the testing, its old now so we are starting to include only the flagship card and one mid range card from the older generations rather than the entire lineup. If you know how the GTX 560 Ti performs and the GTX 580 performs it shouldn't be difficult to work out where the GTX 570 stands anyway.
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What happened to the results from GTX 570? It is on the first page but not in the results :-( That's the card I own and was curious.
We have dropped it from the testing, its old now so we are starting to include only the flagship card and one mid range card from the older generations rather than the entire lineup. If you know how the GTX 560 Ti performs and the GTX 580 performs it shouldn't be difficult to work out where the GTX 570 stands anyway.
Thanks for the reply, I game on a 55" at 1080p and the GTX 570 does really well at the resolution, just thought was weird that you guys listed on the first page. :-)
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It doesn't matter who you are or what GPU brand you prefer, to even pretend that a re-release of the 7970 with a special name called the 'GHz Edition' is just a normal 7970 is ridiculous.
I do however, agree with GTX 570 testing/results, atleast for 1080p/1200p and 1680X1050. A GTX 570, although now a mid-range GPU, can still stay with a 580 or damn near with a modest overclock and it would be nice (I also have a GTX 570 in my HTPC) to see where it stacks up on newer games compared to a 560Ti and 580.
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