MSI N280GTX-T2D1GOC, GeForce GTX 280 Redux
Half Life 2's game engine isn't exactly what we would call "GPU-intensive" but it is also one of the most popular with the likes of Valve's Counter Strike Source being powered by it as well.
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Thanks to the dedication of hardcore PC gamers and a huge mod-community, the original Half-Life was one of the most successful first person shooters of all time. And courtesy of an updated game engine, gorgeous visuals, and intelligent weapon and level designs, Half Life 2 became just as popular. Episode 2 - the most recent addition to the franchise - offers a number of visual enhancements including better looking transparent texture anti-aliasing. These tests were run at resolutions of 1,920 x 1,200 and 2,560 x 1,600 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 to benchmark all cards for these tests. |
Once again, there are no suprises here, especially since we're more CPU-bound than anything else in this test. MSI's GeForce GTX 280 drops in tight with the other GTX 280 offerings from Asus and EVGA. The Radeon HD 4870 X2 proves itself to be 18% or so faster than any of the GTX 280 cards in this test but also retails currently for about 25% premium.
