Hardware and Software Used

We now begin the benchmark portion of this article, but first let me show you our test system plus the software we used.

Mainboard

ASUS Crosshair V Formula

Processor

AMD FX 8150 - 8120 - 6100 - 4100

Graphics Cards

GeForce GTX 580

Memory

2x4096MB DDR3 1866 MHz CAS9 G.Skill RipJaws

Power Supply Unit

BFG 1200 EX Watt (DXX PCIe 2.0 model)

Monitor

Dell 3007WFP - up to 2560x1600

OS related Software

Windows 7 64-bit SP1 (latest patches & updates installed)

DirectX 9/10/11 latest End User Runtime

Geforce 263.09 WHQL

Software benchmark suite

SiSoft Sandra

Aida

3DMark06

3DMark Vantage

3DMark 11

Handbrake

Cyberlink MediaEspresso

CineBENCH 11.5

FryRender

Far Cry 2

Crysis 2

A word about 'FPS'

What are we looking for in gaming performance wise? First off, obviously Guru3D tends to think that all games should be played at the best image quality (IQ) possible. There's a dilemma though, IQ often interferes with the performance of a graphics card. We measure this in FPS, the number of frames a graphics card can render per second, the higher it is, the more fluently your game will display itself.

A game's frames per second (FPS) is a measured average of a series of tests. That test is often a time demo, a recorded part of the game which is a 1:1 representation of the actual game and its gameplay experience. After forcing the same image quality settings; this timedemo is then used for all graphics cards so that the actual measuring is as objective as can be.

Frames per second Gameplay <30 FPS very limited gameplay 30-40 FPS average yet very playable 40-60 FPS good gameplay >60 FPS best possible gameplay

So if a graphics card barely manages less than 30 FPS, then the game is not very playable, we want to avoid that at all cost.

With 30 FPS up-to roughly 40 FPS you'll be very able to play the game with perhaps a tiny stutter at certain graphically intensive parts. Overall a very enjoyable experience. Match the best possible resolution to this result and you'll have the best possible rendering quality versus resolution, hey you want both of them to be as high as possible.

When a graphics card is doing 60 FPS on average or higher then you can rest assured that the game will likely play extremely smoothly at every point in the game, turn on every possible in-game IQ setting.

Over 100 FPS? You have either a MONSTER graphics card or a very old game.



The ASUS Crosshair V Formula used for this article