GeForce GTX 285 or Radeon HD 4870, what’s best for COD4?
nVidia has released a Mac compatible version of GeForce GTX 285, positioned to take on ATI’s Radeon HD 4870. Competition is great, the more options for Mac gamers the better, but which one runs Call of Duty 4 best?
The question seems simple enough, look up a few benchmarks and see which one scores highest, right? Not so much, turns out the benchmarks are conflicting, in Bare Feats’ benchmark it shows the GeForce GTX 285 surpassing the Radeon HD 4870 by nearly 30%.
Yet in accelerate your mac’s benchmark the roles are reversed showing the Radeon HD 4870 with a 22% lead over the GeForce GTX 285.
Examining the settings used in both benchmarks they appear to be relatively the same, the key difference was resolution. At the resolution of 1920×1200 Radeon HD 4870 is faster, but at a higher resolution of 2560×1600 GeForce GTX 285 performs better.
An interesting fact to keep in mind before making your next graphics card purchase.
Related Articles
- ATI Radeon HD 3870 Mac Edition
- iMac update aimed at gamers?
- Warhammer Online Mac Beta Goes Live
- Gameloft bringing RTS ‘Rise of Lost Empires’ to the iPhone
- Virtual Programming Releases The Abbey for Mac OS X
I’m not to start the war between console and PC/Mac gamers and if you guys need the highend graphics capabilities in any case why not to use that power in gaming as well. Point taken
Ripardi,
In my work I still need good graphics power. I develop and run intensive three-dimensional visualization programs, and having a decent graphics card is a must.
Of course, if all you are doing is making cute little spreadsheets, and typing up cute little emails, and cute little comments, then why would you have a Mac Pro in the first place?
Do I even need to mention OpenCL?
I personally prefer higher level graphics for my gaming experience. There’s nothing wrong with console gaming, it’s great if you feel the level of graphics is acceptable or you are on a tight budget, then yes consoles are the way to go. But if you are willing to pay more, you’ll get the best gaming experience on Mac/PC, better graphics and in this case better controls, keyboard/mouse is more precise for FPS games in general, as opposed to using gamepads much akin to operating cranes.
Besides if you invested in a strong Mac or PC for work, why not use that raw power for gaming as well.
Why not to game on a console and leave the computers for work purposes. CoD4, 5, and soon 6 are first available for Xbox360 and PS3 that cost probably the same or less as your fancy gfx cards. Lets separate the tools and the toys.
How fast it runs at 2560×1600 seems moot for most gamers. I imagine not everyone can justify investing in a capable 30″ monitor. I don’t see the prices on 2560×1600 panels decreasing any time soon either; not before there is a bigger better video card on the market for Mac Pro gamers, anyway.