Premium/High-End Category

The GeForce GTX 280 is obviously slower than the other Premium category products in this test. It delivers good performance at resolutions up to 1920x1200 but has a barely playable frame rate at 2560x1600. The ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, on the contrary, offers a reserve of speed even for a most fastidious virtual driver. This card is the best choice in its category because the GeForce GTX 280 SLI configuration is more expensive and less easy to install and use, and requires a SLI-compatible mainboard.

The 3-way configuration from ATI is not worth the trouble of assembling it. It is no better than the single Radeon HD 4870 X2 in terms of speed but costs much more money.

Performance-Mainstream Category

Nvidia’s solutions are on the losing side here. Just take a look at the 1920x1200 results: the Radeon HD 4870 easily yields an average 77fps and has a bottom speed of 58fps whereas the GeForce GTX 260 can’t even make it to 40fps, being twice slower than its opponent. The results of the Radeon HD 4850 are more modest, yet it delivers 60fps at 1920x1200, too.

So, Nvidia’s products are not the best choice for playing GRID. The Radeon HD 4850 is the best buy for this game. It is an inexpensive but fast graphics card.

Mainstream Category

It’s the same story again, but now only the solutions from ATI can provide an acceptable speed at 1280x1024. And the Radeon HD 4830 is the only card to have a comfortable frame rate at 1680x1050. The choice of an affordable graphics card is obvious here.