Versus Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 280
By now you’re probably thinking, “Great—you tested against a bunch of less-expensive cards and ATI’s one quicker single-GPU solution. Where’s the GeForce GTX 275?” We’ll do you one better. How about a GeForce GTX 280? The card still sells from anywhere between $305 and $350 online and should technically outclass the two 4770s. So, we took a handful of the most strenuous games and put the two solutions head to head.
Without AA enabled, the two Radeon HD 4770s are shockingly either as fast as or slightly faster than a single GTX 280. Turn on the eye candy, and Nvidia’s solution slips into the lead. But at 1680x1050, where the GTX 280’s 512-bit memory bus and 1 GB frame buffer help it pull away, we’ve already dropped down to 40 fps, making the victory a little less meaningful.
The two configurations trade blows in Stalker without the AA enabled, but perform very similarly overall. The same applies when anti-aliasing is turned on in the game. Below 1280x1024, however, things slow down too much to be considered playable.
World in Conflict favors Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 280 at 1280x1024 and 1680x1050. But the CrossFire’d 4770s pull ahead at 1920x1200. With AA on, the GTX 280 again leads at the two lower resolutions, while things even up at 1920x1200.
All in all, not a bad showing for a pair of 4770s. Yeah, we were surprised too.
