by Rob Williams on May 4, 2009 in Graphics & Displays
Believe it or not, despite the HD 4890’s launch last month, the HD 4870 is still totally relevant, thanks to ATI’s current pricing structure. There’s a card for every budget, and if you’re willing to spend around $180, you can get hooked up with a 1GB version of the card we’re taking a look at today. It’s silent, keeps cool, and still delivers great performance for the money.
What was the last first-person game on the PC to truly blow you away, or offer some unique gameplay experience? New first-person shooters come out quite often, and while some show off some new features and gameplay twists, few of them truly regenerate the genre like we’d hope. Mirror’s Edge is a title that strived to do just that, and for the most part, I’d have to say they’ve done a great job.
First and foremost, Mirror’s Edge isn’t so much a first-person shooter as it is a first-person adventure game, because for the most part, combat isn’t the main focus. Throughout some of the few levels I played through, at times there could be a full ten-minute span without even seeing a single person, which is actually somewhat refreshing. The game focuses on figuring out the best way to get from point A to point B, heavily utilizing the parkour style of travel.
![](/articles/graphic_cards/settings/jan_2009/mirrors_edge_thumb.jpg)
Most levels in Mirror’s Edge offers a similar level of system-intensity, so I based our choice on one that was fun to play through, and one that allowed an easily-replicable run-through. It takes place in chapter six, “Pirandello Kruger”, and Checkpoint A. We begin in a large building, behind a window, looking out at the city. Our run-through takes us outside of this building, down to the street and up to the top of the building shown to the right in the above screenshot.
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We see some slight improvement with the latest drivers on the 1680×1050 resolution, but at 1920 and 2560, the performance is essentially identical between the 1GB and 2GB cards. Great performance overall, as long as PhysX isn’t one of your requirements.
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NVIDIA GTX 295 1792MB x 2
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 8xAA
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118.680 FPS
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NVIDIA GTX 285 1GB x 2
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 8xAA
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88.346 FPS
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Zotac GTX 295 1792MB
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 8xAA
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70.562 FPS
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NVIDIA GTX 275 896MB
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 8xAA
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54.090 FPS
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NVIDIA GTX 285 1GB
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 8xAA
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48.385 FPS
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Palit GTX 280 1GB
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 8xAA
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44.806 FPS
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Sapphire HD 4890 1GB
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 8xAA
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44.531 FPS
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Diamond HD 4870 1GB
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 8xAA
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41.452 FPS
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XFX GTX 260/216 896MB
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 8xAA
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38.122 FPS
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Sapphire HD 4870 2GB
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 8xAA
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37.100 FPS
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Palit HD 4870 X2 2GB
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 8xAA
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35.297 FPS
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NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 1GB
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 4xAA
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35.756 FPS
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Sapphire HD 4830 512MB
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 4xAA
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32.589 FPS
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ASUS GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 0xAA
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46.250 FPS
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Sapphire HD 4670 512MB
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1920×1200 – Max Detail, 0xAA
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39.204 FPS
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With 42.829 FPS on average with 4xAA, we were cutting it somewhat close to what we consider to be a truly smooth gameplay experience for this title, but if you really love your 8xAA, the frame rates you’re left over with are still totally manageable.