Radeon HD 4870 X2: Four Cards Compared

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars v1.4

Larger variations are normal in higher resolutions. In fact, the frame rate can even go up because the graphics card gets more work to do and CPU power can be used for the 3D engine again. CrossFire with dual-chip cards, SLI, and single-card CrossFire don’t provide any advantages, as the frame rates are almost always lower due to a taxed CPU. For good frame rates in Quake Wars, one fast graphics chip is enough.

Driver Comparison: Catalyst 8.9 Versus Catalyst 8.10 w/ Radeon HD 4870 X2

You can see a slight drop in performance, but the values are within measurement tolerances. The break at 1680x1050 without anti-aliasing (0AA) is unexpected, but we tested several times to confirm that these numbers are correct.

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ET: Quake Wars in fps 12800xAA 16800xAA 19200xAA 12804xAA 16804xAA 19204xAA Overall
HD 4870 X2 8.10 QX@3.67 90.1 87.6 89.1 86.4 86.3 86.1 525.6
HD 4870 X2 8.9 QX@3.67 91.1 91.4 89.4 87.9 87.3 86.8 533.9
Performance difference in percent -1.1 -4.2 -0.3 -1.7 -1.1 -0.8 -1.6