also, i can't believe how expensive the 295's are.... they're the same price as the gtx 480's... if i were to get any card out of the two for that price i would go with the gtx 480 over the 295 mainly because the 480 is newer technology (dx11 and other features like GDDR5)

the 480 is also a solitary GPU and runs faster in some cases, they are approximately just as powerful as each other.



However the 480 can be put into dual SLI vs the 295 which would be quad SLI with two cards, making the 480 vastly superior. Quad SLI 480 (that is, four 480's) would be fucking insain xD

However for most games a 465 turns out to be plenty, and I prefer ATI's more aged and better priced cards tbh.

Which would be why I knew about 16/16/8 because I have an LGA1366

also that chart is somewhat wrong on the 285. on warhead with everything turned all of the way up(only 1680 though) I get about 45fps. but then considering that they are going to be running at about 670mhz i could see the lower frame rates.

LGA 1366 motherboards are known for having up to 6 or 7 PCI-E 2 x16 slots.

Also I don't believe the chart is wrong, the discrepancy you observe is because they are running it at a higher resolution, resolution makes more difference than settings 9 times out of 10 in terms of rendering performance, I trust the guys I got the chart from to do it right.

I'll put it this way:

A = 1980x1200@60Hz = 142,560,000 pixels per second.
B = 1680x1050@60Hz = 105,840,000 pixels per second.
A/B = 1.3469387755102040816326530612245

The ratio of performance is about 1.35, that is if A was at 37fps, then B would be at approx. 50 FPS, this would suggest that in the same set up you'd run yours at 50fps, however your settings are different so the 5fps drop is just a slight attenuation via the display settings.

(there is also probably a different CPU and RAM set up in their PC as compared to yours, and different background applications.)

In other words no, nothing is wrong.

Even if the chart didn't display accurately the real world performance, it can be used for it's intended purpose of marking the 480 vs the 295, so all of that was pointless anyway :P

yes resolution would be one reason why, also the computer build has something to do with graphics performance all together no matter what graphics card you have. it would be like saying "why doesn't my single core computer with a gtx 480 get above 10 fps in crysis?" reason being at that point any variation is a cpu bottleneck not a gpu bottleneck

The chart shows with no AA or AF I run with full on both. hence the framerate dropping.
But I would think that lowerish quality in a higher resolution would be easier to render than higher quality at a lower resolution.

Doesn't really matter what you think, I just proved you wrong xD

A = 1980x1200@60Hz = 142,560,000 pixels per second.
B = 1680x1050@60Hz = 105,840,000 pixels per second.
A/B = 1.3469387755102040816326530612245
37fps*1.35 ~~ 50fps

technically speaking yes you have, i still think his system has alot to do with his fps difference however

I agree, however only to an extent.
When it comes to picking a system to support a GPU, I don't believe in a big supper powered CPU, a decent dual core does just fine, sure games are moving towards demanding quad cores, but we are a way off that yet, because of this I'd recommend AM3 chipsets for their versatility, and a good cache on the CPU.

The motherboard has basically no effect on single GPU's in this day and age, while in SLI or crossfire it's best to go for AM3 boards, or LGA1366 boards, as LGA1156 doesn't have 2x16 lane PCI-E2 open.

RAM matters to the extent that you need 2GB at least of DDR3 1066, then you are good to go, on windows vista or 7, get 4GB's or 3GB's, no more than that is needed.

apart from that, ignoring cooling, it's performance difference with different components is negligible.

mafia II for "optimal" gameplay is going to require an sli setup with a dedicated 9800gtx minimum for physx and an i7 for the cpu...

i agree with you on the cpu, most games don't demand a quad core but a triple core is optimal for gameplay from what i've been looking into where as a high end dual core will do almost the same (infact the e8400 intel scores higher than some amd and intel quad cores and blows past triple cores in 3dmark 06 overclocked at 3.8-4ghz)