Review: ZOTAC GeForce GTX 470 - tested in SLI and compared to Radeon HD 5870 XF - Graphics - HEXUS.net

Tessellation with SLI

# Hardware-based tessellation is a cornerstone of DX11. The ability to efficiently generate massive geometry and then to apply what's known as a displacement map to it makes it a tasty technique for adding complexity and detail to a scene without a huge computational cost.

Unigine's Heaven 2.0 benchmark tests the ability of DX11 GPUs to provide varying levels of tessellation and extra in-benchmark detail.

Here's the standard benchmark run at 1,920x1,200 with 4x AA and 16x AF. Hover your mouse over the picture to see the difference between no tessellation and moderate tessellation.

We ran the DX11 cards through the benchmark/tessellation test at each setting.

Benchmarks

We're seeing performance scaling of 87 per cent without tessellation.

The GeForce GTX 4x0 GPUs pull away as greater tessellation load is introduced, to the tune of 39 per cent when comparing GTX 470 SLI vs. Radeon HD 5870 XF at the extreme level.

Bear in mind that most games that can harness the technology will use moderate tessellation, where the two dual-card solutions fare similarly.