Benchmark Results: Stalker: Clear Sky
Stalker: Clear Sky benchmarks are fairly new in our graphics card reviews, even if the game itself isn’t particularly fresh. Let us know what you think of this one in the comments section. At the very least, it’s a beautiful looking game. We measured performance by running the standalone benchmark and averaging together the four scores presented upon completion. Also, we opted for High detail settings, DirectX 10 lighting, and, in the case of the AMD cards, DirectX 10.1 disabled (for more on DX 10.1 versus DX 10, check out the page dedicated to that discussion earlier in the review).
At least at 1680x1050 and 1920x1200, the Radeon HD 4890 demonstrates its largest leads against the HD 4870 1 GB. However, that lead is needed in order for AMD to leapfrog the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, which was faster than the Radeon HD 4870. Frame buffer clearly isn’t a huge issue here, given the performance differences between the 512 MB and 1 GB 4870 boards.
Frame buffer does make a world of difference with 4x MSAA and 4x MSAA for alpha-tested objects turned on. The 512 MB Radeon HD 4870 drops down to nothing, and even Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 takes a significant hit versus the 1 GB AMD cards. The gap between the 4870 and 4890 remains roughly 10% or so. Most interesting, perhaps, is the Radeon HD 4870 X2’s pronounced advantage, almost exactly doubling performance at 2560x1600.
