Pixel Shader Performance

Tests

• Direct3D 10: 3DMark Vantage: POM Shader Test
  
• Direct3D 10: RightMark 3D 2.0: Steep Parallax Mapping
  
• Direct3D 10: 3DMark Vantage: Perlin Noise
  
• Direct3D 10: RightMark 3D 2.0: Fire Pixel Shader Test
  
• Direct3D 9.0c: 3DMark06: Perlin Noise
  
• Direct3D 10: 3DMark Vantage: GPU Particles
  
• Direct3D 9.0c: 3DMark06: Pixel Shader

Test Kit

• Intel Core i7 965 processor (3.2GHz: 133MHz x 24)
  
• Asus P6T V2 motherboard (Intel X58 Express)
  
• 6GB Corsair TR3X6G1333C9 DDR3 memory (3x 2GB, 1,333MHz, CL9)
  
• Corsair X128 SSD
  
• Corsair HX1000W PSU
  
• Windows Vista Home Premium x86-64 (with Service Pack 2)
  
• Antec Twelve Hundred Chassis
  
• HD 5870: Catalyst 8.66 RC6 Windows Vista/7 (September 11th Build)
  
• All other ATI: Catalyst 9.9 WHQL
  
• ] Nvidia: ForceWare 190.38 WHQL

With an exception of the RightMark 3D 2.0 Steep Parallax Mapping test, which is both pixel shader- and texture-bound, the Radeon HD 5870 shows off its phenomenal raw pixel shader throughput in these tests. The 3DMark Vantage Perlin Noise test is a bit of an extreme example, delivering more than two and a half times the performance of the Radeon HD 4890, but it shows that AMD has really delivered a potentially very fast GPU.