1. Introduction2. The HIS HD 5870 iCooler V Turbo3. Testin Configuration4. Resident Evil 55. Batman: Arkham Asylum6. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat7. Left4Dead 28. Colin McRae Dirt 29. Crysis Warhead10. 3d Mark Vantage11. Thermal Dynamics12. Noise Levels13. Power Consumption14. Manual Overclocking15. Closing Thoughts16. View All Pages

Colin McRae: Dirt 2 (known as Dirt 2 outside Europe and stylised, DiRT) is a racing game released in September 2009, and is the sequel to Colin McRae: Dirt. This is the first game in the McRae series since McRae’s death in 2007. It was announced on 19 November 2008 and features Ken Block, Travis Pastrana, Tanner Foust, and Dave Mirra. The game includes many new race-events, including stadium events. Along with the player, an RV travels from one event to another, and serves as ‘headquarters’ for the player. It features a roster of contemporary off-road events, taking players to diverse and challenging real-world environments. The game takes place across four continents: Asia, Europe, Africa and North America. The game includes five different event types: Rally, Rallycross, ‘Trailblazer,’ ‘Land Rush’ and ‘Raid.’ The World Tour mode sees players competing in multi-car and solo races at new locations, and also includes a new multiplayer mode.

This engine support DX11 and was one of the integral releases for ATI when they launched the 5xxx series cards a while ago. Hardware tessellation is used on the crowd, as well as water and cloth objects. DirectCompute 11 accelerated high definition ambient occulsion is also integrated with full floating point high dynamic range lighting.

We enabled maximum settings, including hardware tessellated animated crowds and dynamic water via ULTRA settings.

The only card on test which dips below the 25fps ‘red line' is the reference HD5850 card. The highly overclocked Sapphire Toxic manages to squeeze 3-5 fps extra across the range. The HD5870 cards breeze through the test without ever dropping below 30fps.

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