Testbed and Methods

To test our graphics cards performance in contemporary games we put together the following testbed:

• Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor (3.0GHz, FSB 333MHz x 9);  
• Asus P5Q Pro (Intel P45 chipset) for ATI Radeon HD graphics cards;
• Asus P5N32-E SLI mainboard (Nvidia nForce 680i SLI chipset) for Nvidia GeForce graphics cards;
• Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C5 (2x1GB, 1066MHz, 5-5-5-15, 2T);
• Maxtor MaXLine III 7B250S0 HDD (250GB, Serial ATA-150, 16MB buffer);
• Enermax Galaxy DXX EGX1000EWL 1000W power supply;
• Dell 3007WFP monitor (30", 2560x1600@60Hz max display resolution);
• Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit;
• ATI Catalyst 8.10 Hotfix for ATI Radeon HD
• Nvidia GeForce 178.24 WHQL for Nvidia GeForce

According to our testing methodology, the drivers were set up to provide the highest possible quality of texture filtering and to minimize the effect of software optimizations used by default by both: AMD/ATI and Nvidia. Also, to ensure maximum image quality, we enabled transparent texture filtering. As a result, our ATI and Nvidia driver settings looked as follows:

ATI Catalyst:

• Catalyst A.I.: Standard
• Mipmap Detail Level: High Quality
• High Quality AF: On
• Wait for vertical refresh: Always Off
• Enable Adaptive Anti-Aliasing: On/Quality
• Method: Multi-sampling
• Temporal Anti-Aliasing: Off
• Other settings: default

Nvidia ForceWare:

• Texture filtering - Quality: High quality
• Texture filtering - Trilinear optimization: Off
• Texture filtering – Anisotropic sample optimization: Off
• Vertical sync: Force off
• Antialiasing - Gamma correction: On
• Antialiasing - Transparency: Multisampling
• Other settings: default

We selected the highest possible level of detail in each of the seven games discussed today, however, in some cases we didn’t use certain advanced settings. The games configuration files weren’t modified in any way, because the user doesn’t have to know how to do it. Except in Devil May Cry 4 game that features built-in testing tools, we used Fraps 2.9.1 in manual mode. Each test was run three times and the average result was taken for further analysis. We measured not only the average speed, but also the minimum speed of the cards where possible, that allowed us to better evaluate the level of gaming comfort in each title.

We tested the following graphics accelerators:

Premium/High-End:

• ATI Radeon HD 4870 3-way CrossFire
• ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 SLI
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 280

Performance-Mainstream:

• ATI Radeon HD 4870
• ATI Radeon HD 4850
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
• Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+

Mainstream:

• ATI Radeon HD 4830
• ATI Radeon HD 3870
• Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT
• Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT

To estimate their performance we used 7 latest games of different genres:

• Dead Space (Sci-Fi/Horror TPS)
• Devil May Cry 4 (Hack’n’Slash TPS)
• Race Driver: GRID (Race Simulator)
• The Witcher: Enhanced Edition (RPG)
• Mass Effect (Sci-Fi Action RPG)
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky (FPS)
• Spore (Global Strategy/God Simulator)

We ran the tests in resolutions corresponding to the most popular monitor diagonals: 1280x1024 (17”-19”), 1680x1050 (20”-22”), 1920x1200 (23”-27”) and 2560x1600 (30”). Performance-Mainstream graphics cards were limited to 1920x1200 resolution, and Mainstream graphics cards – to 1680x1050. For the two highest categories we enabled anisotropic filtering and MSAA 4x antialiasing if the game supported it. Lower-performance solutions were tested only with enabled anisotropic filtering, because their potential may not be sufficient to use full-screen antialiasing at an acceptable average and minimal performance level.