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Call Of Duty: Black Ops II Graphics Performance, Benchmarked

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The Call of Duty series is an old favorite of ours, so it's a foregone conclusion that we'd check out Black Ops II's performance on the PC. How well does your graphics card handle it? Does this title have what it takes to stand out in a crowded genre?

Test System And Graphics Hardware

As always, we strive to represent game performance across a wide range of graphics hardware. We're including cards ranging from the low-end Radeon HD 6450 and GeForce 210 to multi-card Radeon HD 7950 CrossFire and GeForce GTX 660 Ti setups.

We tried to include triple-monitor 5760x1080 results, but the game doesn't support Surround or Eyefinity. As such, the highest resolution we can test is 2560x1600 on a single monitor.

Testing Notes

We configured all overclocked cards to operate at reference frequencies to best represent a majority of products on the market. And as mentioned, we chose the demanding jungle area of the Celerium level for our benchmarks, reflecting worst-case performance. Frame rates are much higher in other parts of the game.

Test System
CPUIntel Core i7-3960X (Sandy Bridge-E), 3.3 GHz @ 4.25 GHz , Six Cores, LGA 2011, 15 MB Shared L3 Cache, Hyper-Threading enabled.
MotherboardASRock X79 Extreme9 (LGA 2011) Chipset: Intel X79 Express
NetworkingOn-Board Gigabit LAN controller
MemoryCorsair Vengeance LP PC3-16000, 4 x 4 GB, 1600 MT/s, CL 8-8-8-24-2T
GraphicsGeForce 210 1 GB DDR3GeForce GT 630 512 MB GDDR5GeForce GTX 650 2 GB GDDR5GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1 GB GDDR5GeForce GTX 660 2 GB GDDR5GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2 GB GDDR5GeForce GTX 670 2 GB GDDR5Radeon HD 6450 512 MB GDDR5Radeon HD 6670 512 MB DDR3Radeon HD 7750 1 GB GDDR5Radeon HD 7770 1 GB GDDR5Radeon HD 7850 1 GB GDDR5Radeon HD 7870 2 GB GDDR5Radeon HD 7950 Boost 3 GB GDDR5Radeon HD 7970 3 GB GDDR5
Hard DriveSamsung 470-series 256 GB (SSD)
PowerePower EP-1200E10-T2 1200 W ATX12V, EPS12V
Software and Drivers
Operating SystemMicrosoft Windows 8
DirectXDirectX 11.1
Graphics DriversCatalyst 12.11 beta 7, Nvidia 310.54 beta
Benchmarks
Call of Duty:Black Ops II"Celerium" Mission, after landing wingsuit base jump, Two-minute Fraps run
62 Comments Comment from the forums
  • JOSHSKORN 16 November 2012 14:45
    I'd like to know how the game performs using the 2550k/3570k chips versus the 3960x since they usually makes Toms' Recommended Buy list for gamers.
    Reply
  • greghome 16 November 2012 14:48
    I'm surprised you guys even bother benchmarking this game since the requirement for the COD series hasn't really changed for 5 Years.....considering they're still the same engine.....not to mention the same game..
    Reply
  • esrever 16 November 2012 14:55
    Numbers aren't surprising. Doesn't push hardware at all since the 7750 can play at 1080p on medium. The game is more a console game than a PC game.
    Reply
  • JJ1217 16 November 2012 15:09
    Jesus Christ Toms! Stop bloody benchmarking the 1GB version, its clearly the bottleneck.
    Reply
  • JJ1217 16 November 2012 15:11
    by that I mean 1GB 7850
    Reply
  • cats_Paw 16 November 2012 15:59
    Im quite sure the game has not been optimized at all after its port to the PC :D. Makes it look like its better >D.

    I saw the trailer for this game, and it looks like a DX9 game with decent textures. So, ill pass, just as i did since MW1.
    Reply
  • jurisc 16 November 2012 16:14
    nothing special I would say. Same crappy graphics!
    Reply
  • cats_Paw 16 November 2012 16:21
    Maybe im mistaken, but i think the comparison from mid and high details is a bit misleading.
    Going from mid to high level it would be in the best interest of the readers to submit the same ammount of antialiasing. It is very hard to know the impact of the graphics themselves when it comes to image quality, if you add both AA and higher textures.

    I am quite sure the game will be layable with full HD and no AA, then adding Sweet FX AA far better than with MSAA.
    Reply
  • ojas 16 November 2012 16:32
    There's something wrong with the detail settings picture. I think Medium's been labeled as "Low" and vice-versa.

    Doesn't make sense otherwise.
    Reply
  • ojas 16 November 2012 16:35
    Also, it's odd, your mini-review (like MoHs) almost completely contradicts the RPS review. But then i guess there's a reason i come to Tom's for hardware related stuff and RPS for all things gaming...

    http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11/15/black-ops-2-pc-review/
    Reply