Unigine Heaven Benchmark Results

The Unigine "Heaven 2.0" benchmark is a free publicly available tool that grants the power to unleash the graphics capabilities in DirectX-11 for Windows 7 or updated Vista Operating Systems. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. With the interactive mode, emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is within reach. Through its advanced renderer, Unigine is one of the first to set precedence in showcasing the art assets with tessellation, bringing compelling visual finesse, utilizing the technology to the full extend and exhibiting the possibilities of enriching 3D gaming.

The distinguishing feature in the Unigine Heaven benchmark is a hardware tessellation that is a scalable technology aimed for automatic subdivision of polygons into smaller and finer pieces, so that developers can gain a more detailed look of their games almost free of charge in terms of performance. Thanks to this procedure, the elaboration of the rendered image finally approaches the boundary of veridical visual perception: the virtual reality transcends conjured by your hand. The "Heaven" benchmark excels at providing the following key features:

• Native support of OpenGL, DirectX9, DirectX-10 and DirectX-11
• Comprehensive use of tessellation technology
• Advanced SSAO (screen-space ambient occlusion)
• Volumetric cumulonimbus clouds generated by a physically accurate algorithm
• Dynamic simulation of changing environment with high physical fidelity
• Interactive experience with fly/walk-through modes
• ATI Eyefinity support

Due to the repeatability of this benchmark, the comparisons that result are extremely reliable for the chosen test settings. Through most of the benchmarks the 9800GT and Go! Green HD 5670 have been relatively equal in performance sometimes with one leading and sometimes with the other leading. If the parts are truly equal then the minor differences in performance are due to variation rather than real performance differences. The Heaven benchmark has very low variation and better shows the true differences in performance for at least one method of benchmarking.

With this in mind the HD3850 as caboose and GTX 260 as the engine don't come as any surprise. However, the 9800GT clearly stands above the default AX5670 and the overclocked AX5670. This seems about right since in previous tests when the 9800GT led it typically beat out even the overclocked AX5670.

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