Overclockers.com Video Card reviews... its time to change things up!

As the titles states, the OCF testing we feel is a bit long in the tooth (that was for you evilsizer, ). We are more than likely going to switch platforms and with that switch we update the testing suite we use.

On the synthetic side of things, a nod to our benchmarking team, we have tentatively decided to remove 3DMark Vantage. Being so old and run at such a low resolution, we are not seeing expected gaps between cards until we lay into the CPU a bit. This alludes to the fact that the benchmark is CPU bound. With that, we are going to add Unigine Valley. So that lineup will potentially look like this:
Ungine Valley
Unigine Heaven
3DMark 11
3DMark (Fire Strike)

We are open to thoughts and suggestions on these.

On the games front is where we are reaching out to you, the great readers of our forum and blog, to assist us in finding some new titles to benchmark for our video card reviews. We are looking to get rid of the 'high FPS' and older games in favor of some more stressful and newer, more relevant titles. We are looking to replace Batman: Arkham Origin, Bioshock: Infinite, and Grid 2 while keeping Crysis 3 (maybe...), Metro: LL, and BF4. While BF4 is showing its age with the high end cards, its still a hugely popular game online so my personal preference is to keep it for now (first to go on the next update)... but nothing is safe!

The first replacement thought of was Dirt: Rally. Really pretty game and, more importantly has an in game benchmark. In game benchmarks helps with the integrity of the testing by making sure it is repeatable... the same thing every time.

Outside of that, we really would like to hear your ideas on games that we should include in our new suite. We would strongly prefer that any games chosen have built in benchmarks. If not built in benchmarks, perhaps a section that is 'on rails' (like in BF4, we use a car scene that you can only move your head around) so we can ensure all who are reviewing are doing the same thing. If there is a very popular title that is without, we will certainly give it consideration.

Well, its on you guys! Give us some suggestions on games and we can see about adding them to our new suite!!

Thanks in advance for your time, and we appreciate any help you can give us!

Witcher3 FTW

I would bump up the synthetic FS to Ultra , at minimum Extreme

4k is relevant now ,

I know this isn't a reality at the moment but hopefully soon we can see some DX12 action get added once the games start to drop.

Noted!

Does W3 have a built in benchmark?

4K is most certainly gaining traction these days, however, according to steam, less than .07% of users there have it. It is with that in mind, that I don't believe we should jump up to Ultra, but perhaps go to Extreme as a happy medium... your thoughts?

Scout said:

I know this isn't a reality at the moment but hopefully soon we can see some DX12 action get added once the games start to drop.

Click to expand...

Good point, though I have a funny feeling that we will have made our choices before any major DX12 land...we may be able to add to it, a mini update if you will, when some reach the market in a few months (Star Wars Battlefront?!!!)..

I would have to check for updated benchmarkable games. But many publications are including Witcher3 and GTA5 as benchmarks. Crysis3 is still a heavy hitter as I understand it, so that is fine. Tomb Raider is also commonly used IIRC. Far Cry 4 is also a solid benchmark. Techspot's methodology is as follows:


Agreed with Witchy on upping to Ultra/Extreme for the benchmarks if possible. I'm also not sure of the monitors that you and Dino have, Joe, to be able to suggest 1440p or 4K as an option (although VSR is a possibility it probably adds additional overheard to cards that wouldn't make it a fair comparison for testing higher than native resolutions of monitors).


Edit: just saw your post asking of W3 has a built-in benchmark, I am unsure. I found that techspot also released how they did their benchmark.

Gotcha... we are not averse to running 'uncanned' benchmarks, that is for sure, but we preferred to have it included for ease of running it and consistency sake. But we won't bypass popular titles because we actually have to 'play', LOL!

Just think of it this way, you will become really really good at that opening scene!

Also Arkham Knight

Maybe after the game is patched significantly. It launched so broken that WB pulled the game from store shelves. Performance was bad for both nvidia and amd cards (and worse for amd) that I couldn't imagine recommending it as a benchmark until months after its re-release sometime this fall.

Shadow of mordor has an in game benchmark doesn't it? And it sure seems to load up the vram like crazy!

Not released yet so maybe more of an option for the next chopping block, but you should consider Fallout4 or the new DOOM. Maybe some of the beta testers can confirm resolutions. Obviously we have no idea if built in benching will be available.

My thought here is these are highly anticipated heavy graphics/physics titles that gamers will want to compare their gear to.

More likely to have a benchmark in the new Doom than Fallout, I don't think Bethesda is known to include benchmarks in their games.

I'm also unsure of how good FO4 will eventually end up looking (if it will be a graphical powerhouse, or will it be a slightly better-looking FO3/Skyrim (seeing how everything is still based on the same engine).

A note about Shadow of Mordor -- I've read a few articles that basically state the game fills the VRAM with crap and "utilizes" whatever is available but with pretty much no performance benefit. I think using it as a benchmark is a fine choice, but I don't think for VRAM purposes would be necessary.

BUMP!!! Any other ideas?

So far it seems we have a few good suggestions... looking for a few more!

Updates that can happen now:
Witcher 3
Bump 3DM FS to 'Extreme or greater'
Far Cry 4
Dirt: Rally
GTA V
Shadow of Mordor

Future:
DX12 games
Doom
Batman: Arkham Knights (game is borked)
Fall Out 4

Shadow of Mordor should be in the mix, whether it just loads the vRAM with crap or not it will absolutely bring a system to its knees.

I also think GTA V with the maximum draw distance would be a good way to really tax the vRAM of a system. My votes go to GTA V and Shadow of Mordor, both maxed to the gills.

Thanks Ty!

I forgot about GTA V and missed Shadows of Mordor...(edited).

If we select GTA V, we would not jack up the draw distance as that would not be fair to cards with less vRAM capacity. We are not testing what it performs when its out of vRAM so we would want to make sure that it is at a reasonable level for all cards (likely default).

With a game like SOMordor and its vRAM, that is what it is honestly... and also a good candidate as it does have a built in benchmark.

something going forward if possible, after reading the msi 1070 review. have the % increase is nice, is it possible to have the score under it where it shows the % increase or decrease. the % difference is nice so that you can see what the difference is for say an overclocked card or one of another model ie 1080/980's ect. i only noticed this in the 3dmark benchmarks but adding the % difference to the others listed would be nice as well for ones showing FPS.

it would help to figure out for some if that 5% fps increase from one card to another would be worth X dollar amount. if that makes since, as well as possibly a $ to performance weither it be a number generated based on game fps's added vs dollar number or something that way.