Reviewed: MSI Z97I Gaming AC & R9 270X Mini ITX

As opposed to the scripted benchmarks, subjective testing is where we try to execute the same passage of game play from a save game or checkpoint with FRAPS running to a log file. This is less reproducible and more prone to variation. The comparison between cards in this section means less than the true benchmarks but it provides a good indication of what you should expect when gaming with each card.

We also only graph the average frame rates but include the minimum and maximum in the tables for reference. Minimum and maximum frame rates can be misleading, especially on subjective type test runs.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

In this game play, we use the ‘Arena’ mode and benchmark a round 3 times, taking the average min, max and avg readings across all 3 runs. We do this because the runs are not typically that long. Despite its age, The Witcher 2 with the settings below really tests current graphics cards.

The graphics settings used were:
1920×1080, Texture Downscaling: High, Texture Memory Size (MB): Large, Shadow Quality: Ultra, Number of Shadowed Lights: Ultra, LOD Distance: Normal, Bloom: Enabled, Light Shafts: Enabled, Anti Aliasing: Enabled, Blur Effects: Enabled, Depth of Field – Gameplay: Enabled, Vignette: Enabled, Wet Surfaces Rain Effect: Enabled, SSAO: Enabled, Motion Blur: Enabled, Cinematic Depth of Field: Enabled, Depth of Field – Cutscenes: Enabled, Dangling Objects Limit: Disabled, Ubersampling: Enabled, Vertical Sync: Disabled, Decals: High Spec

Battlefield 4

Battlefield 4 is a finicky game to use as a benchmark, even a subjective one as you will never see the same experience twice. We used the Firestorm map and tried to stay around the same capture point and not die (to avoid the respawning menu) when running the FRAPS benchmark.

The settings used were:
1920×1080, Ambient Occlusion: HBAO, AA Deferred: Off, AA Post High, Display Mode Full Screen, Effect Quality: High, Lighting Quality: High, Mesh Quality: High, Post-process Quality: High, Resolution Scale: 100, Terrain Settings: All High

Skyrim

Not a new title but the newest of The Elder Scrolls series and still a very popular game we maxed Skyrim out but didn’t use any texture packs so keep that in mind when looking at the readings below. Testing was done from a consistent save game outside during the day at 1920×1080

CRYSIS 3

Crysis 3 was tested outside in long grass using grenades and cloak mode in as consistent a fashion as possible.

The graphics settings were as follows:
AF: 16x, AA: 4x MSAA Medium, Display mode: Full Screen, All settings @ Very High, 1920×1080

FarCry 3

Playing from a save game, starting at a checkpoint and moving around the buildings before blowing up a car with a grenade at the end of the benchmark run gave us the following statistics.

The Graphics settings were:
1920×1080, Window Mode: Full Screen, VSYNC: Off, GPU Max Buffered Frames: 1, Widescreen Letterbox: Off, DirectX 11, AA: 2xMSAA, Alpha to Coverage: Enhanced, SSAO Method: HBAO, Quality Settings: ULTRA (All maxed out)