GPUs Graphics Reviews

10 years ago: Powercolor HD 6850 SCS3 in review – Passively cooled new graphics star or burning comet? | Retro

Foreword

We continue this test analogous to our charts with a very special benchmark selection and a new test system. The selection of the individual tests was made on an exemplary basis and after much deliberation. We have therefore also deliberately omitted games that particularly suit the graphics cards of one manufacturer. We also evaluated things like tessellation and physics only within the usual gaming framework and did not use tech demos or special benchmarks. The aim was to be able to evaluate as balanced as possible.

Technology

Test system
CPU Intel Core i5 2500K @4.5 GHz
CPU Cooler Prolimatech SuperMega + Noiseblocker Multiframe PWM
Mainboard Asus P67 Sabertooth Rev. B3

RAM 8 GB Kingston HyperX 1600 “Genesis
System SSD 256GB SAMSUNG MZ5PA256HMDR-01000
Power supply unit Cougar GX 105080 Plus Gold

Total 1050 watt
Combined Power 3.3V/5V 160 watt
Combined Power 12V 1008 watts
Efficiency 93 %
OS Windows 7 x64 Ultimate
Measuring devices
Electricity and
Consumption
Measurement
Energy Logger 4000 (Conrad Electronic)

– Long-term measurements
– Monitoring
– Consumption measurements up to 1.2 KW

Voltcraft SBC-500 (Conrad Electronic)

– More accurate measurements in the milliwatt range
– Consumption measurements up to 500 watts

Noise level
measurement
Voltcraft SL-400 (Conrad Electronic)

– Noise level measurements
– Long-term recordings
– Monitoring

Synthetic tests

For our tests, we first resort to 3DMark11, where we evaluate the largely processor-independent graphics tests. The results are certainly quite meaningful in view of the benchmark’s topicality. On the other hand, we did not use 3DMark06 and Vantage due to their age and the many dependencies on external circumstances. We chose Sanctuary v. 2.3 from Unigine as our second synthetic test and deliberately did without DirectX-11 functionality, since still many current game titles do not include explicit DirectX-11 support or also rely on DirectX-10 features.

Games

In this area, too, we primarily focus on balance, because some pre-tests have shown that surprises can definitely lurk, especially in the older DirectX modes. The relevance is definitely given, because the game collection of most users does not only contain pure DirectX 11 games, after all. Enough has been written about Tessellation and PhysX, we won’t deal with feasibility studies here, but test the gaming routine.

Syntethic Benchmarks
3DMark11
  • Grahpics tests 1-4
Unigine Sanctuary v. 2.4
  • Dynamic lights
  • HDR rendering
  • Parallax occlusion mapping
  • Ambient occlusion mapping
  • Translucence
  • Volumetric light and fog
  • Particle systems
  • Postprocessing
  • Interactive experience with fly-through mode
Gaming Benchmarks
DirectX 11 Metro 2033
Aliens vs. Predator
DirectX 10 Call of Juarez
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat
DirectX 9 Mafia II

Performance classes: Gamer and enthusiast

After some deliberation, we have decided on two performance classes for the charts, which also take the acquisition costs into account and reflect them. In this regard, the Gamer range with a resolution of 1680 x 1050 pixels and the Enthusiast range with 1920 x 1080 pixels are also given. After internal discussion and consultation with some readers, we have decided to abandon both the oversized resolutions and the smaller ones, as this does not yet or no longer affect the intended target group. The selection of settings was also subordinated to this grouping. Although we explicitly test the mid-range in this article, the results with the upper-range requirements are also of high interest – after all, it shows that quite a few cards can almost catch up with the top class and at least often enough at least the taillights are still visible.

Performance index and calculation bases

Instead of cumulative frame rates for overall ranking, we have therefore created a total of 2 new performance indices for the first time, the Gamer and Enthusiast indices. Thus, each tested card can be rated in the gamer or enthusiast range at the same time. Thus, a card that is too weak in the enthusiast sector can still be quite usable in the gaming sector. Cumulative rates in fact say nothing about performance under certain conditions, so we will replace this with the more transparent index variants.

How do we arrive at the values now? For this purpose, we took a typical representative of each manufacturer from the good mid-range (AMD Radeon HD 6870, Nvidia Geforce GTX 560 Ti) and the upper-range (AMD Radeon HD 6970, Nvidia Geforce GTX 570) and evaluated their behavior in a total of 15 tested games, grouped them in relation to each other and thus created a fictitious “Raforce Gedeon”. We took these “cards” as a yardstick for the respective quality settings in each of the benchmark tests and set the achievable frame rates as a 100% mark for the gamer or enthusiast index of this one benchmark. The sum of all percentages within the two ranges, divided by the number of tests, then gives the Gamer and Enthusiast Indexes for each card respectively. Since the “Raforce Gedeon” is vendor-neutral, the advantages of certain cards are largely excluded in advance. The whole thing may sound complicated, but in the end it’s not. If you limit yourself to common gaming settings, then the indices are certainly a good indication for the price/performance ratio.

Consumption measurement and temperature

After a few attempts, we want to take a different route this time in order to exclude fluctuations. We have our CPU running at 100% capacity with Prime95, but we have these threads running in the background at low priority. Then we measured the consumption of a smaller card, whose values we know very precisely, once at idle and once with Furmark. If you subtract the idle and load consumption values from the two measured total consumption values, you get the total consumption of the system under load without the graphics card as the difference. In our case, both values matched except for the watt, so we only need to subtract 131 watts from all other measured values to conclude the card’s consumption. Of course, we still take the actual values for control and check the results for possible outliers. As usual, we measure the temperatures in idle and under full load. This is based on a constant room temperature of 22° Celsius.

Noise level measurement

Here we go the normal way, 50 cm distance to the center of the card must be enough. We also removed all clocks and other noise sources from the test room during the tests.

Kommentar

Lade neue Kommentare

G
Guest

Interessante "Machbarkeitsstudie". Bei den heutigen Airflow-Gehäusen mit teilweise auch mächtigen 200er Lüftern würde die sich wahrscheinlich wohl fühlen. Solange genug Platz ist, vorausgesetzt.
Hach ja, schöne Welt, eine GraKa für unter 300 Euro...

Antwort Gefällt mir

Blubbie

Urgestein

807 Kommentare 275 Likes

Ich glaub das Teil hatte ich sogar mal. Später habe ich mir dann aber sogar noch einen kleinen Lüfter drauf geklemmt (Kabelbinder und Draht) um das letzte bischen Mehrleistung raus zu quetschen... :p

Antwort Gefällt mir

D
Dezor

Veteran

490 Kommentare 215 Likes

Ich finde es wirklich schade, dass es solche Kühler nicht mehr gibt. Das Potential ist groß. Mit UV und/oder Begrenzung der Leistungsaufnahme rutscht man weiter Richtung Sweet-Spot und kann einen lautlosen PC aufbauen. Mit nahezu unhörbarem Lüfter drauf wird das ganze zwar größer als 2 oder 3 Slots, dafür bleibt man flüsterleise. Die neuen Asus-Karten mit Noctua-Lüftern gehen ein Stück weit in die Richtung.

Ich frage mich allerdings, ob eine gedrehte Ausrichtung der Lamellen nicht sinnvoller wäre. Dann könnte man den Luftstrom des vorderen Gehäuselüfters sinnvoller nutzen oder sogar eine Kühllösung ähnlich wie in Servern (oder beim aktuellen Mac Pro) konstruieren, bei der die Luft von vorne nach hinten durchgepustet wird. Mit ein bisschen Basteln gibt es Luftkanäle und die Lüftergeschwindigkeit kann man anhand der GPU-Temperatur regeln. Selbst Multi-GPU wäre damit möglich, ohne dass die obere Karte nach Luft hecheln muss.

Antwort Gefällt mir

ApolloX

Urgestein

1,622 Kommentare 900 Likes

Als ich um Weihnachten herum mit altem Radeon HD Karten gespielt hatte, haben die passiv gekühlten auch richtig Freude gemacht, weil diese mit aufgeschnalltem Lüfter dann auch nochmal richtig nen Leistungssprung nach vorne gemacht haben.

Antwort Gefällt mir

Alexander Brose

Moderator

808 Kommentare 560 Likes

Ich mag solche Tests echt gerne, da sieht man mal, wie weit wir gekommen sind.

Tatsächlich hab ich neulich erst STALKER installiert, weil es in irgend einem Game-Hilfspaket für die Ukraine angeboten wurde. Damals habe ich das Spiel auf einer fast abbrennenden 8800 GTX mit bescheidenen FPS gezockt, auf der RX 6600 lief das Ding maxxxed out in 1440p mit hunderten von FPS und die GPU gönnt sich dabei 30 Watt oder sowas :D.

Gerne mehr von so altem Zeug, wenn du noch was liegen hast 👍.

Grüße!

Antwort Gefällt mir

Igor Wallossek

1

10,015 Kommentare 18,385 Likes

Eimerweise, ich war in den ganzen Jahren ja recht aktiv :)

Antwort 1 Like

C
ChaosKopp

Urgestein

506 Kommentare 527 Likes

Dieser kleine Ausflug in die Vergangenheit war angenehm zu lesen. Von daher vielen Dank.

Lustig auch, wenn man mal auf die Preise der damaligen Karten schaut. Klar, Inflation, blablabla, aber für knapp über nen Hunni bereits erhältlich.

Antwort Gefällt mir

s
samhayne

Mitglied

99 Kommentare 55 Likes

Witzig… hatte grad noch den 2020er Artikel zur GTX 1650 KalmX durchgeschmökert.

Antwort Gefällt mir

LurkingInShadows

Urgestein

1,336 Kommentare 544 Likes

Wie war das? 318W für die Brechstangen GF560 Ti???

Heute gibts dafür was, ne 3080? (Will grad nicht suchen)

Wären dann 2 vs. 28 Mrd. Transistoren bei selber Leistungsaufnahme, auch krass.

Antwort 1 Like

Danke für die Spende



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About the author

Igor Wallossek

Editor-in-chief and name-giver of igor'sLAB as the content successor of Tom's Hardware Germany, whose license was returned in June 2019 in order to better meet the qualitative demands of web content and challenges of new media such as YouTube with its own channel.

Computer nerd since 1983, audio freak since 1979 and pretty much open to anything with a plug or battery for over 50 years.

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