Far Cry 3

The next game in our benchmark suite is Far Cry 3, Ubisoft’s island-jungle action game. A lot like our other jungle game Crysis, Far Cry 3 can be quite tough on GPUs, especially with MSAA and improved alpha-to-coverage checking thrown into the mix. On the other hand it’s still a bit of a pig on the CPU side, and seemingly inexplicably we’ve found that it doesn’t play well with HyperThreading on our testbed, making this the only game we’ve ever had to disable HT for to maximize our framerates.

With Far Cry 3 we’re back to a game where the GTX 760 has a clear lead, surpassing the 7950B by an unexpected 28% at our highest 1080p settings. However 41.5fps is less than idea for an action game like Far Cry 3, so we have to drop the MSAA to take a crack at 60fps. Even then, the GTX 760 leads by 14%.

This also happens to be another great example of the ROP difference between GTX 760 and GTX 660 Ti. With MSAA enabled the GTX 760 takes a clear lead, but without MSAA the two cards are practically tied.

Meanwhile Far Cry 3 is also another strong example of the performance gap between the GTX 760 and cards 2-3 years old. GTX 760 leaves those older cards in the dust by anywhere between 77% for the GTX 560 Ti and 6870, up to 138% for the GTX 460 1GB. CPU performance may have plateaued over the last half-decade, but thanks to the embarrassingly parallel nature of graphics, we continue to see massive gains over a whole generation.

Crysis: Warhead Battlefield 3
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  • Aditya211935 - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link

    I guess I m a bit early.
  • A5 - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link

    Looks pretty solid for the price.
  • Samus - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link

    I feel like an idiot buying a 660Ti two months ago for $300. At least I got the 3GB version that'll be "somewhat" future-proof for BF4 as the maps are expected to tax 2GB cards.
  • gamoniac - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link

    Don't look back. You can only make your decision based on the information you had and your needs at the time. If you could look just 2 minutes ahead, you would be a billionaire now and wouldn't be participating in this conversation.
  • just4U - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link

    this is essentially a cheaper 670.. coming it at or below the price of the 660TI. I don't see your purchase as being one of those you think $*!@! over. Hah. Your card is a bit slower but not noticeably so and the added ram may benefit you down the road.
  • Hixbot - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link

    A cheaper, and slower 670. So not really a 670 at all.
  • just4U - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link

    I'd agree.. although pricing here is 275-300.. Don't see any at 249. The 7950 is 300.. They will have to lower that down a tiny bit to be competitive I think, take a small hit in performance (but more ram possible benefit later?) and their games bundle the trade off for consumers should be about equal.
  • Lovolt - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link

    Not sure where 'here' is, but newegg has 3 models at $250 and another 6 at $260 (on June 26).
  • just4U - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link

    Calgary Canada.. We have a newegg.ca but it's not as good as your newegg I think that's to do with taxation and not having a actual warehouse here.
  • ericore - Tuesday, July 2, 2013 - link

    No, they have warehouses in Canada; if you've ever ordered a big order you'd realize this since not everything ships at once; comes from different warehouses in Vancouver, Mississauga and several others. They charge us more because they can, but only charge more on certain items so that we can't revolt. Generally the can prices are very close to the US ones, but the odd time they are significantly more. Processing and taxes are also cheaper in the US, but we do get the crappy end of the stick at times. There was a specialty motherboard, on newegg.com this was 100, and newegg.ca this was 150; can't remember the model.

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