AMD Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition & HD 7850 Review - DiRT 3

Dirt 3 has replaced our previous benchmark of Dirt 2. The Dirt 2 benchmark was the "urban" London circuit, which had several nice examples of water tessellation for the gar to drive through. The Dirt 3 benchmark we use is the Aspen track, which is a long winding snow course.

Rather than water and cloth effects in Drt 2, the Dirt 3 course showcases snow covered trees that flank a snow-covered course with tessellation effects on the snow tracks gouged into the snow. Additionally, there are continuous snow particles kicked up from the cars, and a better chance to see cars flipping and skidding. Overall, a nice and "pretty" update to our Dirt 2 benchmark.

We similar performance between the Radeon HD 7800 and the Radeon HD 6900 families. In widescreen, we see a tie at 1600x900, with the Radeon HD 7870 pulling ahead of the HD 6970. The HD 7850 comes in just under the HD 6950 in widescreen. Similar performance story in Eyefinity as well.