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A Trio from HIS: 7970 IceQ X² GHz Edition, 7950 IceQ X² Boost Clock and 7850 IceQ Turbo X Graphics Cards Review. Page 9

[02/05/2013 02:27 AM | Graphics]
by Sergey Lepilov

We continue checking out proprietary graphics accelerators, and today we are going to discuss three Radeon HD based products from HIS IceQ series.

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Testbed Configuration and Testing Methodology

All participating graphics cards were tested in a system with the following configuration:

As we have already mentioned above, besides the individual graphics accelerators, we will also test the performance of a CrossFireX configuration built with two HIS 7850 IceQ Turbo X graphics cards:

There were no problems during the driver installation for this configuration, the CrossFireX mode was enabled automatically:

For comparison against HIS 7970 IceQ X² GHz Edition and HIS 7950 IceQ X² Boost Clock we also included one of the fastest graphics cards on GeForce GTX 680 - Asus GeForce GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP 2 GB (GTX680-DC2T-2GD5):

In order to lower the dependence of the graphics cards performance on the overall platform speed, I overclocked our 32 nm six-core CPU with the multiplier set at 37x, BCLK frequency set at 125 MHz and “Load-Line Calibration” enabled to 4.625 GHz. The processor Vcore was increased to 1.49 V in the mainboard BIOS:

Hyper-Threading technology was enabled. 16 GB of system DDR3 memory worked at 2 GHz frequency with 9-10-10-28 timings and 1.65V voltage.

The test session started on January 17, 2013. All tests were performed in Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1 with all critical updates as of that date and the following drivers:

We ran our tests in the following two resolutions: 1920x1080 and 2560x1440. The tests were performed in two image quality modes: “Quality+AF16x” – default texturing quality in the drivers with enabled 16x anisotropic filtering and “Quality+ AF16x+MSAA 4(8)x” with enabled 16x anisotropic filtering and full screen 4x or 8x antialiasing if the average framerate was high enough for comfortable gaming experience. We enabled anisotropic filtering and full-screen anti-aliasing from the game settings. If the corresponding options were missing, we changed these settings in the Control Panels of Catalyst and GeForce drivers. We also disabled Vsync there. There were no other changes in the driver settings.

Since we have already reviewed quite a few Radeon HD 79xx and HD78xx based graphics cards with different driver versions by now, the list of games and applications used in this test session was shortened and included one popular semi-synthetic benchmarking suite and 9 latest games of various genres with all updates installed as of the beginning of the test session date:

  • 3DMark 2011 (DirectX 11) – version 1.0.3.0, Performance and Extreme profiles;
  • Metro 2033: The Last Refuge (DirectX 10/11) - version 1.2, maximum graphics quality settings, official benchmark, “High” image quality settings; tesselation, DOF and MSAA4x disabled; AAA aliasing enabled, two consecutive runs of the “Frontline” scene;
  • Total War: Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai (DirectX 11) – version 1.1.0, built-in benchmark (Sekigahara battle) at maximum graphics quality settings and enabled MSAA 4x in one of the test modes;
  • Crysis 2 (DirectX 11) – version 1.9, we used Adrenaline Crysis 2 Benchmark Tool v.1.0.1.14. BETA with “Ultra High” graphics quality profile and activated HD textures, two runs of a demo recorded on “Times Square” level;
  • Battlefield 3 (DirectX 11) – version 1.4, all image quality settings set to “Ultra”, two successive runs of a scripted scene from the beginning of the “Going Hunting” mission 110 seconds long;
  • Sniper Elite V2 Benchmark (DirectX 11) – version 1.05, we used Adrenaline Sniper Elite V2 Benchmark Tool v1.0.0.2 BETA with maximum graphics quality settings (“Ultra” profile), Advanced Shadows: HIGH, Ambient Occlusion: ON, Stereo 3D: OFF, two sequential test runs;
  • Sleeping Dogs (DirectX 11) – version 1.5, we used Adrenaline Sleeping Dogs Benchmark Tool v1.0.0.3 BETA with maximum image quality settings, Hi-Res Textures pack installed, FPS Limiter and V-Sync disabled, two consecutive runs of the built-in benchmark with quality antialiasing at Normal and Extreme levels;
  • F1 2012 (DirectX 11) – update 10, we used Adrenaline Racing Benchmark Tool v1.0.0.13 with “Ultra” image quality settings during two laps on Brazilian “Interlagos” race track with 24 other cars and a drizzling rain; we also used “Bonnet” camera mode;
  • Borderlands 2 (DirectX 11) – version 1.3.1, built-in benchmark with maximum image quality settings and maximum PhysX level, FXAA enabled.
  • Hitman: Absolution (DirectX 11) – version 1.0, built-in test with Ultra image quality settings, with enabled tessellation, FXAA and global lighting.

If the game allowed recording the minimal fps readings, they were also added to the charts. We ran each game test or benchmark twice and took the best result for the diagrams, but only if the difference between them didn’t exceed 1%. If it did exceed 1%, we ran the tests at least one more time to achieve repeatability of results.

 
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