ATI Radeon HD 3870 and 3850: 55nm RV670
Half Life 2: Episode 2
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 Half Life 2: Episode 2 |
Thanks to the dedication of hardcore PC gamers and a huge mod-community, the original Half-Life became one of the most successful first person shooters of all time. And thanks to an updated game engine, gorgeous visual, and intelligent weapon and level design, Half Life 2 became just as popular. Episode 2 offers a number of visual enhancements including better looking transparent texture anti-aliasing. These tests were run at resolutions of 1,280 x 1,024, 1,600 x 1,200 and 1,920 x 1,200 with 4X anti-aliasing and 16X anisotropic filtering enabled concurrently. Color correction and HDR rendering were also enabled in the game engine as well. We used a custom recorded timedemo file to benchmark all cards in this test. |
In a single-card configuration, the Radeon HD 3870 slightly outperforms the Radeon HD 2900 XT in our custom Half Life 2: Episode 2 benchmark. The HD 3850, however, finished behind the 2900 XT due to its smaller frame buffer and lower frequencies. But all of the Radeons fall victim to NVIDIA's hardware here.
The Radeon HD 3870's lead over the 2900 XT increases when running in dual-card Crossfire mode, and the HD 3850's deficit is significantly reduced due to better scaling. But once again the GeForce 8800 series cards come out on top at every price point.
