Last Thoughts

Both AMD and Nvidia accept been working hard to testify their graphics cards in the all-time possible light when playing Far Cry iii, with both camps releasing many performance-related driver updates in recent weeks. Naturally, nosotros used the almost recent versions -- Catalyst 12.11 Beta eleven and GeForce 310.lxx -- in our benchmarks.

Correct now, with the latest drivers, it seems that Nvidia has a slight border over AMD, and this was particularly evident when looking at the ultra quality results with 4xMSAA enabled. This is surprising given that Far Cry 3 is part of AMD's Gaming Evolved program and is featured in their latest Never Settle gaming bundle.

Considering that, it seems reasonable to assume AMD'due south drivers would already be quite mature, and the visitor has previously boasted that Far Weep 3 is optimized for Radeon graphics cards. With that being the example, it's embarrassing that Nvidia's second-best card managed to outpace AMD's flagship when playing on max.

Therefore, if you plan to play Far Cry 3 using the highest possible in-game quality settings, you'll likely want a GeForce carte du jour. We establish this to be truthful beyond all three resolutions tested (1680x1050, 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 if you skipped ahead), as the GTX 680 and 670 consistently trounce both versions of the Hard disk 7970 and 7950.

You'll find similar results as you lot move down the food chain. On ultra, the $230 GTX 660 matched the $250 Hard disk drive 7870. Similarly, on very high quality, the GTX 660 Ti was much faster than the Hard disk 7950 and 7870, while the GTX 660 beat the 7850. AMD conspicuously has piece of work to do if it wants to claim the operation crown in Far Cry 3.

Unlike Hitman: Absolution, Far Cry iii didn't prove to be overly CPU dependent, though the operation trends were similar: for the best results, you'll definitely desire Intel inside. That said, AMD's processors actually held their own in terms of cost vs. performance, as the FX-8350 trailed the Core i5-3470 by but a single frame.

With these performance reviews, I ordinarily play the starting time few missions, but with Far Cry three I plant myself playing for several hours before getting to piece of work. Although it doesn't use many DirectX 11 features, it still looks stunning and its open world is a blast to explore. Here's a more detailed review of the gameplay if you lot're interested.