![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Sunday , August 23, 2009
- Author:
- Matthew Krysiak
- Editor:
- Brent Justice
- Google +1
ASUS EAH4770 FORMULA Video Card
The battle at $100 is fierce, and the new ASUS EAH4770 FORMULA thinks it can take on the challenge. This time around, we have included some of the latest games including Arma II and Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. We also squeeze every amount of performance out of the ASUS 4770 FORMULA using third party apps to achieve the best overclock possible and see if it makes any difference in real world gameplay.
Arma II
We are using the full Steam version of Arma II with latest patches. For our testing procedure, we are playing the first five minutes of the single-player scenario entitled "Counterattack", in which Russian forces are tasked with retaking control of a city from rebel forces. We begin our FRAPS recording immediately following that ejection, while we work our way into the outskirts and eventually into the city heart.
Highest Playable Settings
In Arma II the NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 is playable at 1920x1200, no AA, 16X AF, with Visibility set at 1000, Texture Detail set at High, Terrain/Object/Shadow set at Normal, and Postprocess set at Low. The ASUS EAH4770 FORMULA was playable at the same in-game settings however, the resolution had to be turned down to 1680x1050. Trying to raise the resolution to 1920x1200 on the EAH4770 meant sacrificing other key settings and ultimately led to a worse gameplay experience.
That’s not to say that we didn’t enjoy the gameplay experience. In fact, we were quite surprised at just how well these $100 dollar video cards did with such a demanding game, especially the GeForce GTS 250 being playable at 1920x1200.
Apples-to-Apples
Above we see an apples-to-apples comparison of both video cards at 1920x1200, no AA, 16X AF. The in-game options were: Visibility set at 1000, Texture Detail set at High, Terrain/Object/Shadow set at Normal, and Postprocess set at Low. These are of course the highest playable settings we found the GeForce GTS 250 to be playable at.
The graph shows that the EAH4770 framerates took a nosedive from its highest playable settings. Here the framerates are dancing around the red line (25 FPS) throughout the run-through whereas the GeForce GTS 250 was able to stay around the 30 FPS mark through most of the run-through.
Image Quality
Above is a crosscut of screenshots taken from the two video cards. Notice how the added pixels improve the details especially in the distant objects.