DiRT: Showdown

Racing to the front of our benchmark suite is our racing benchmark, DiRT: Showdown. DiRT: Showdown is based on the latest iteration of Codemasters’ EGO engine, which has continually evolved over the years to add more advanced rendering features. It was one of the first games to implement tessellation, and also one of the first games to implement a DirectCompute based forward-rendering compatible lighting system. At the same time as Codemasters is by far the most prevalent PC racing developers, it’s also a good proxy for some of the other racing games on the market like F1 and GRID.

DiRT: Showdown - 1920x1080 - Ultra Quality + 4x MSAA + Adv. Lighting

DiRT: Showdown - 1920x1080 - Ultra Quality + 4xMSAA

DiRT: Showdown - 1920x1080 - Ultra Quality

DiRT’s advanced lighting engine isn’t really within reach of all of these sub-$200 cards, but once we drop down to standard lighting there’s performance to spare, even with MSAA. Though even without that advanced lighting though this is one of the harder games for the GTX 650 Ti Boost; it falls behind the 7790 by about 5%, never mind the 7850.

The Test Total War: Shogun 2
Comments Locked

78 Comments

View All Comments

  • Zstream - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link

    Any specific reason as to why the 1gb wasn't used?
  • Zstream - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link

    In addition, the 7790 will have 2gb cards as well so I'm just confused overall.
  • DanNeely - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link

    Probably because nVidia only sent a 2GB sample. I assume once retail cards are available a 1GB model will be tested too.
  • Oxford Guy - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link

    Of course they didn't send the 1GB model. It's absolutely completely positively ridiculous. It has no business existing.
  • shandy706 - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link

    They say why in the article. I think I'd read it before commenting.

    lol
  • Zstream - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link

    I guess I don't see where that's in the article. Can you comment on the paragraph?
  • shandy706 - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link

    "Please note that the GTX 650 Ti Boost NVIDIA is sampling is the 2GB card. We’ll take a look at 1GB cards later once those arrive, since they were a late addition."

    Second page, very middle.
  • HighTech4US - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link

    From page 2 (clear as day, if you just bothered to read)

    Please note that the GTX 650 Ti Boost NVIDIA is sampling is the 2GB card. We’ll take a look at 1GB cards later once those arrive, since they were a late addition.
  • Zstream - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link

    Thanks for clearing that up. I will have to wait to see if the 2gb is a paper launch.
  • Ryan Smith - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link

    2GB 650 TiB launches this week. It will be 1G that will come later.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now