Fallout 3 4xAA

Fallout 3 Performance 1920x1200x32
Card	Min FPS	Max FPS
GeForce GTX 280	39	74
GeForce GTX 260	36	65
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216	37	69
GeForce 9800 GTX+	31	56
GeForce 9800 GTX	29	53
GeForce 8800 Ultra	29	53
GeForce 8800 GTX	27	50
Radeon HD 4870 X2	44	82
Radeon HD 4870 1GB	34	65
Radeon HD 4870 512MB	33	65
Radeon HD 4850 512MB	26	51

Notes

The Radeon 4870 X2 is CPU-bound in all of our benchmark results, including 2560x1600! This is pretty remarkable considering we’re testing with Intel’s second fastest Penryn processor and the game’s highest graphics settings. Clearly the 4870 X2 is the fastest graphics card for Fallout 2.

NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 280 finishes second to the 4870 X2, while the GTX 260 Core 216 and 192-shader GTX 260 settle in the third and fourth place positions. The Core 216 GPU generally runs 3-4% faster than its older counterpart, while ATI’s Radeon 4870 1GB GPU runs right on the heels of the GTX 260, finishing as close as 2% at 1920x1200. The 512MB Radeon 4870 performs similarly to the 1GB card at 1600x1200 and 1920x1200, although by 2560x1600 the card runs out of memory and performance drops off significantly.

One thing we should note about the 4800 cards are their minimum frame rates. As you can see, the GeForce GTX 260 boards have higher minimum frame rates than the 4870s. When walking into a new area, the ATI card’s chug slightly more than GeForce. This is reflected to some extent in the min frame rates.

Thanks to their higher clock speeds, the 9800 GTX GPUs are able to outrun the older 8800 cards, but with just 512MB of memory the GeForce 8800s manages to pull ahead by 2560x1600.

ATI’s Radeon 4850 finished last in our Fallout 3 performance testing, falling behind the GeForce 9800 GTX by 10% or more.

Let’s see how the cards scale under the greater demands of 8xAA.