by Rob Williams on May 21, 2010 in Graphics & Displays
As our games continue to become even more robust, it would seem likely that having more memory available to the GPU would prove useful, but are we soon to see 2GB cards become commonplace? After many completed tests with Sapphire’s Radeon HD 5870 Vapor-X 2GB, we’re having a hard time settling on that.
When the original Call of Juarez was released, it brought forth something unique… a western-styled first-person shooter. That’s simply not something we see too often, so for fans of the genre, its release was a real treat. Although it didn’t really offer the best gameplay we’ve seen from a recent FPS title, its storyline and unique style made it well-worth testing.
After we retired the original title from our suite, we anxiously awaited for the sequel, Bound in Blood, in hopes that the series could be re-introduced into our testing once again. Thankfully, it could, thanks in part to its fantastic graphics, which are based around the Chrome Engine 4, and improved gameplay of the original. It was also well-received by game reviewers, which is always a good sign.
Manual Run-through: The level chosen here is Chapter I, and our starting point is about 15 minutes into the mission, where we stand atop a hill that overlooks a large river. We make our way across the hill and ultimately through a large trench, and we stop our benchmarking run shortly after we blow up a gas-filled barrel.
There’s not much to be surprised about here. Bound in Blood caters to ATI cards to a small degree, but that’s enough to help Sapphire’s pre-overclocked card soar past the GTX 480 and of course a stock-clocked HD 5870.
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ATI HD Radeon 5870 2GB (Sapphire)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail
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62
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85.31
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ATI HD Radeon 5870 1GB (Reference)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail
|
58
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82.863
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NVIDIA GTX 480 1.5GB (Reference)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail
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58
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82.711
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ATI HD 5770 1GB CrossFireX
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2560×1600 – Max Detail
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59
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87.583
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NVIDIA GTX 295 1792MB (Reference)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail
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37
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80.339
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ATI HD 5850 1GB (ASUS)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail
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51
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69.165
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ATI HD 5830 1GB (Reference)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail
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35
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54.675
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NVIDIA GTX 285 1GB (EVGA)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail
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45
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54.428
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NVIDIA GTX 275 896MB (Reference)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail
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41
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51.393
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ATI HD 5770 1GB (Reference)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail
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28
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45.028
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NVIDIA GTX 260 896MB (XFX)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail
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35
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44.023
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ATI HD 5750 1GB (Sapphire)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail
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27
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38.686
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NVIDIA GTX 250 1GB (EVGA)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail
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25
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33.751
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ATI HD 5670 512MB (Reference)
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1920×1080 – Max Detail
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38
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47.23
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NVIDIA GT 240 512MB (ASUS)
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1920×1080 – Max Detail
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29
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39.446
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ATI HD 5570 1GB (Sapphire)
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1920×1080 – Max Detail
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24
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32.931
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ATI HD 5550 1GB (Sapphire)
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1920×1080 – Medium Detail
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19
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28.775
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Like Modern Warfare 2, this game isn’t too intensive in the grand scheme, so we once again were able to max out the graphics all-around and retain sweet framerates.