How About Graphics Image Quality?
A still image was used to check and contrast the 3D image quality of the current graphics chips. The scene shows Mass Effect at 1280x1024, anisotropic filtering selected via the game, and 4xAA enabled through the graphics driver. Mass Effect uses the UT3 3D engine and runs under Vista using DirectX 10. The game is set to maximum image quality in the graphics options, and the scene shows stairs to see how anti-aliasing corrects the numerous sloping lines.
The Radeon HD 4850 and HD 4870 are lighter with the illumination, which can clearly be seen by the reflections and the shadow reflexes in the left banister. Otherwise, the visual comparison shows no further differences among the cards.