Performance in First-Person 3D Shooters

Battlefield 2142

This game doesn’t support display resolutions of 16:10 format, so we use resolutions of 1920x1440 and 2048x1536 pixels (4:3 format) instead of 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 for it.

The 3-way CrossFireX system is slightly ahead of the Zotac GeForce 9800 GX2 at every resolution, but the minimum speed fluctuates greatly at 2048x1536. The opponents deliver about the same level of gaming comfort, so the choice depends on your personal preferences. The Zotac card has one advantage, though. It needs only one PCI Express x16 slot.

BioShock

BioShock doesn’t support FSAA when running in Windows Vista’s DirectX 10 environment. That’s why we benchmarked the cards without FSAA.

Again, the two graphics subsystems are roughly similar, the ATI one being somewhat superior in terms of minimum speed. Anyway, the Zotac GeForce 9800 GX2 allows playing comfortably at every resolution including the yet-exotic 2560x1600. So, the user’s choice will depend on the retail prices of the products and the availability of a mainboard supporting ATI CrossFire technology.