On the Software side
Along with the launch of the GTX 700 series , Nvidia has come up with Geforce Experience, a software utility introduced with a fundamental objective to provide users with proper optimization of video game’s visual settings as per your GPU and other system components. GeForce Experience witnessed 2.5 million downloads during its Beta Testing cycle. It is out of Beta now, and has been officially released. The software is compatible with all Nvidia GPUs. Another objective this software has is to keep your system updated with the latest Nvidia GPU drivers to serve upto the mark performances.
How GeForce Experience optimizes games is simple. It scans your system for installed games and reads the in-game graphics settings, and adjusts them accordingly. The adjustments, as Nvidia claims, are done by analysing the power of other computer components, and using Nvidia’s database of user submitted results with the same GPUs. They are pretty accurate, but if you can handle the in-game graphics settings menu yourself, you should go ahead, as you still have more control over the situation. An example of how GFE works is given in the image above.
GPU Boost 2.0
GPU boost 2.0 is the updated and improved version of the previous GPU Boost 1.0. It allows you to change the power target as well as the temperature target of the GPU. This is an incredible feature we saw on the GTX Titan as well as the GTX 780, and we predict to see this on other cards in the GTX 700 lineup as well . Also to mention that the GPU boost 1.0 operates within the voltage limitations, while on the other hand the GPU Boost 2.0 does not.
Testing Methodology
Gone are the days where the average frames per second over a two minute run in-game are used as the sole quantifier of how good a GPU is. We noticed in the past that average FPS does not count for smooth gameplay. Some GPUs have high FPS number but real-time gaming is a stutter-full experience. And thus, what we do is that we calculate the time the GPU takes to render each frame. GPUs that render frames faster play the game smoother.
Test Bed
CPU: Intel Core i5 3570k @ 4.5 Ghz
Motherboard: Asrock z77 pro4
RAM: 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 SD RAM at 1600Mhz
PSU: Cooler Master Thunder 700W
Chipset Drivers: INF update 9.2.3.1023
OS: Windows 7 Service Pack 1 64-Bit
Nvidia WHQL Drivers: 320.18
We use Fraps as our sole FPS calculator. The version of our Fraps is 3.5.99.
These Graphics card reviews are really great! You should look into perhaps chronicling a PC build, on a fixed budget. As in, “Gaming PC build: for under Rs 50,000” or something. That would be cool!
Thanks for the suggestion. We are working on a guide, stay tuned! That being said, with so variety of hardware options available to the buyer, with Rs. 50,000 you can really build a beefy PC.