180 Graphics Cards benchmarked: Test #2 - Bioshock Infinite
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Bioshock Infinite
Bioshock Infinite is the third and, to date, final installment in Irrational Games' acclaimed role-playing shooter series. Instead of taking us to the depths of the ocean, this 2013 title transports us to lofty heights. Bioshock Infinite uses modified Unreal Engine 3 and was both visually stunning and technically sophisticated 13 years ago. When launched in (what was then cutting-edge) DirectX 11 mode, the game offers graphical enhancements in the form of Contact Hardening Shadows, an ambient occlusion effect calculated using DirectCompute called HDAO (High Definition Ambient Occlusion), and an alternative diffuse depth of field. Anti-aliasing is less impressive; Bioshock Infinite offers only the post-filter FXAA. The physics are based on Nvidia's (CPU) PhysX library and are used to render rigid bodies, including ragdolls, while Apex Cloth is used for clothing. Additional physics calculations are handled by Bullet, an open-source solution supported by AMD. Bloom, lens flares, heat haze, motion blur, and god rays round out what was, at the time, a compelling feature set.
Source: PCGH
Bioshock Infinite
While the effects were beautiful and ideal for pushing 2013's GPUs, such as the Radeon R9 290X and Geforce GTX Titan, Bioshock Infinite fails to stress recent GPUs. During our evaluation tests many years ago, we thought this would provide an ideal basis for comparing old and new GPUs. However, scaling decreases rapidly due to a CPU bottleneck—despite our hand-tuned 6.2 GHz. AMD GPUs hit this wall significantly sooner than Nvidia chips.
Let's start at the bottom, with the first DirectX 11 graphics card. The Radeon HD 5870 achieves 42.5 fps, while its slightly newer competitor, the Geforce GTX 480, just clears the 50-fps mark. GCN 1.0, aka the Radeon HD 7970, boosts performance by more than a factor of 2 compared to the HD 5870. This makes the top-of-the-line GPU from early 2012 even slightly faster than the smallest Intel GPU in the test field, the Arc A380.
