X-bit labs

Sparkle SF-PX88GT256D3-HP Graphics Card: Is 256MB Enough? (page 15)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin , Yaroslav Lyssenko

[ 02/28/2008 | 04:25 PM ]

Performance in Strategies

Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts

The new add-on to Company of Heroes is tested in DirectX 10 mode only since it provides the highest quality of the visuals.

The flaws of the ForceWare driver can be observed once again: very low performance of G92-based cards equipped with 256 megabytes of graphics memory. The ATI Radeon HD 3850 is not much better for practical purposes, though. The ATI Radeon HD 3870 and GeForce 8800 GT 512MB are the only cards that can run the game normally, yet their minimum speed doesn’t reach 20fps, either.

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

The game having a frame rate limiter, you should consider the minimum speed of the cards in the first place.

The Sparkle GeForce 8800 GT 256MB is the only card whose minimum speed falls below the comfortable level as soon as 1280x1024. The overclocking helps solve the problem up to the resolution of 1920x1200 where the lack of graphics memory becomes the crucial factor. The cheaper and more available Radeon HD 3850 looks preferable here.

World in Conflict

The Sparkle GeForce 8800 GT 256MB is a disappointment here due to the same reason as it was in Call of Juarez, Crysis, Lost Planet, Hellgate and Company of Heroes: the driver cannot manage the available graphics memory efficiently. The ATI Radeon HD 3850 doesn’t behave like that, which means that memory management is implemented better in the Catalyst driver. Overall, each card, including the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, is rather slow in this test.