Codemasters' Dirt 2

Dirt 2 is the first of our DirectX 11 game tests, and it incorporates several enhances features in its DX11 mode including tessellation, ambient occlusion, and high dynamic range texture formats. The GTX 480 continues to pull ahead, this time the margins grow wider as the resolution and AA modes drop. At 1920x1200 with no AA, it's as much as 30% faster. Crank it up to the highest resolution and quality settings and the gap shrinks to less than 10%. All three cards exceed 60 frames per second at 1920x1200 with 8x anti-aliasing applied, which is all most users will need.

GSC Gameworld's S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

Finally, there's S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, another DirectX 11 title. This test was interesting: until we pushed the settings to their upper limits, the GTX480 was dead last. While this does look like an anomaly, we may have puzzled out the issue by taking a closer look at the cards' specifications: the GTX 480 is equipped with 60 texture mapping units, as compared to 80 inside the 5870s. As a result, the card is ultimately texture-bound -- a limiting factor in our Pripyat benchmark, which relies on spacious, heavily textured scenes. At the absolute upper limits the GTX 480 clambers back on top, eking out a single frame of performance higher than the competition. Superior anti-aliasing, but fumbling on textures -- it's ostensibly a case of shirking the basics, in exchange for superior top-end performance.

The Big Picture