Benchmarks: Dirt 2, F1 2010

Dirt 2 has a fantastic built-in benchmark tool that measures actual gameplay performance very accurately. The game was run in DirectX 11 mode with 4xAA and the best visual quality settings enabled.

The GeForce GTX 590 handled Dirt 2 at 2560x1600 with ease, delivering an average of 114fps or 23% faster than the Radeon HD 6990, 97% faster than the HD 6970, and 58% faster than last-gen's HD 5970. Compared to the GeForce GTX 580, the GTX 590 was just 52% faster, indicating that a GTX 580 SLI configuration would be far quicker.

F1 2010
F1 2010 has a great built-in benchmark tool that was added during the first patch. We ran the game in DirectX 11 with 8xMSAA and the best visual quality settings enabled. It should be noted that we weren't able to get Crossfire working correctly in this game with the latest drivers, so the Radeon HD 5970 was unable to pull ahead here.

The GTX 590 performed very well when testing with F1 2010 at 2560x1600, averaging 82fps. It outperformed the HD 6990 by 6%, the HD 6970 by 61%, and the HD 5970 by 41%, respectively. It was again 52% faster than the GTX 580.