TestBed

Motherboard: MSI P45D3 Platinum ( Provided by: MSI );
Processor: Intel Core 2 QX9770 Extreme edition at 3.6GHz ( Provided by: Intel );
Memory: Corsair Dominator 12800 7-7-7-24 ( Provided by: Corsair);
HDD: WD VelociRaptor 300G 10,000RPM ( Provided by: SmoothCreation );
Driver: AMD 9-4_vista32_win7_32_dd_ccc_wdm_enu.exe
          Nvidia_182.50_geforce_winvista_32bit_english_whql.exe
         
Vista 32 SP1

Futuremark Tests

In 3DMark 06 tests on the bottom of the table, where sub-$100 cards are located, Nvidia is a winner. Such results however are only found in this test whereas other tests see a fierce battle among the cards. Additionally, 3DMark06 results also show a low performance difference between HD 4850 and HD 4770 cards.










Gaming


World in Conflict

World in Conflict reports HD4850 to be up to 13% better than HD 4770. You can easily play games up to 1920x1200 resolution, provided there's no antialiasing.














Left 4 Dead

Steam engine again got an update so there's no 9800GT results due to the fact that the demo we've been using and we have to get the new one (ERROR: demo network protocol outdated -> failed to read demo header). We're handling that at the moment, and we'll try to get the results as soon as possible.

Radeon HD 4850 shows up to 13% advantage over the HD 4770, but note that the advantage is higher if you're gaming with antialiasing on. The end result is a good framerate at all the tested resolutions with HD 4770. 














Far Cry 2

FarCry2 likes the HD 4770, which can easily be a result of optimized drivers. We've seen it has what it takes to stand up to HD 4850 and GTS 250 in this game, and that it allows for gaming at 1920x1200.














HAWX

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X game is one of the big titles that feature support for DirectX 10.1. At 1920x1200 without AA and without DirectX 10.1 XFX HD 4890 scores 62FPS while with DirectX 10.1 enabled the same game scores 70 FPS. The same resolution but with AA and without DirectX 10.1 XFX scores 48 FPS while with DirectX 10.1 enabled it scores whopping 57 FPS. We are talking about 10 to 15 percent difference which is a lot.

With Nvidia cards, none of which have support for DirectX 10.1 there is no option to turn this feature on in the game. It took ATI long enough but at least with this title they made a huge difference with its ability to support DirectX 10.1.