More Benchmarks

We did some more testing with other popular PC video games.  Here are the results, along with our comments about the game and test.   Wherever possible, we watched a timedemo and noted the minimum, average, and high FPS (frames per second).  A particular high or dip was not counted unless it lingered for more than an instant.  Therefore, a ridiculously high frame rate when there are no enemies on the screen or complex scenery was not included.  We are looking for numbers that translate into real-world gameplay.

Lego Batman 1900x1200

Lego Batman may not sound like a game that has high graphics expectations, but the complexity of these games has grown with Lego Indiana Jones, and again with Lego Batman.  The same engine may be in use, but the developers have added more complex lighting and transparency effects.  We included Lego Batman to demonstrate how the cards scale with different resolutions with and without in-game anti-aliasing.  It is good to see that you can run the game at extremely high resolutions with full Edge anti-aliasing and still have very playable framerates.

	No AA	Edge AA
X2 1900x1200	102	39
X1 1900x1200	94	38
4870 1900x1200	147	48
GeForce GTX 280	100	39

Lego Batman 1280x720

	No AA	Edge AA
X2 1280x720	144	102
X1 1280x720	146	79
4870 1280x720	99	82
GeForce GTX 280	126	95

 

Codemasters Race Driver Grid

Codemaster's Grid is probably one of the best-looking racing games today.  Everything looks very realistic, from the cars, to the scenery and the crowds.  The engine is demanding, but not impossibly finicky like Crysis.  We tested this game with in-game 2X anti-aliasing, and achieved very playable framerates, even at extremely high 1900x1200 resolution

avg FPS
X2 1900x1200	56
X2 1280x720	59
4870 1900x1200	56
4870 1280x720	59
X1 1900x1200	45
X1 1280x720	54
GeForce GTX 280 1900x1200	42
GeForce GTX 280 1280x720	51

Call of Duty 4 Benchmarks

Call of Duty 4's engine is probably the best example of what a Crossfire or SLI setup can do for you.  The engine is very responsive to multi-GPUs and multi-core CPUs.  The numbers show how the framerate's skyrocket linearly as you stack on more processing power.  If you crave high framerates in CoD, then you totally need a multi-GPU setup.

	low	avg	high
X2 1900x1200	50	75	110
X2 1280x720	73	170	208
4870 1900x1200	48	60	88
4870 1280x720	54	87	102
X1 1900x1200	38	53	60
X1 1280x720	45	78	95
GeForce GTX 280 1900x1200	49	63	98
GeForce GTX 280 1280x720	68	96	153

Crysis Warhead Benchmark

Crysis is THE engine that sucks as much horsepower as you can throw at it.  The engine features many advanced features like motion blur and many other features that are demanding to produce in real-time.  Currently the only way to consistently see over 30 frames per second in this game is to have the latest hardware, which translates into a computer that costs a few thousand dollars. 

Crysis is a prime example of a game that doesn't support Crossfire very well, as nVidia's flagship card is able to stomp all over the multi-GPU Radeon.  Once a patch is released that fully supports Crossfire, then I expect to see these number change dramatically.  For now, however, if you're buying this card solely for Crysis, then you might have to delay your enthusiasm.

	low	avg	high
X2 1900x1200	12	22	29
X2 1280x720	16	23	34
4870 1900x1200	12	20	32
4870 1280x720	17	26	53
X1 1900x1200	15	24	30
X1 1280x720	17	22	36
GeForce GTX 280 1900x1200	20	28	37
GeForce GTX 280 1280x720	24	32	41

<< Testing

Page 6 of 7 1 : Introduction 2 : Sapphire HD 4850 2GB Specifications 3 : A Closer Look 4 : Installation and Use 5 : Testing 6 : More Benchmarks 7 : Conclusion

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