Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 Vapor-X 2GB

Five out of the seven current games we use for testing are either sequels, or titles in an established series. F.E.A.R. 2 is one of the former, following up on the very popular First Encounter Assault Recon, released in fall of 2005. This horror-based first-person shooter brought to the table fantastic graphics, ultra-smooth gameplay, the ability to blow massive chunks out of anything, and also a very fun multi-player mode.

Three-and-a-half years later, we saw the introduction of the game’s sequel, Project Origin. As we had hoped, this title improved on the original where gameplay and graphics were concerned, and it was a no-brainer to want to begin including it in our testing. The game is gorgeous, and there’s much destruction to be had (who doesn’t love blowing expensive vases to pieces?). The game is also rather heavily scripted, which aides in producing repeatable results in our benchmarking.

Manual Run-through: The level used for our testing here is the first in the game, about ten minutes in. The scene begins with a travel up an elevator, with a robust city landscape behind us. Our run-through begins with a quick look at this cityscape, and then we proceed through the level until the point when we reach the far door as seen in the above screenshot.

The Vapor-X once again dominates the charts… except at 2560×1600, where the GTX 295 just inches past it. I think I could speak for almost everyone when I say that the far improved power consumption and temperatures of the HD 5870 is worth losing a frame or two, especially when we’re dealing with numbers in the 90’s.

Like Call of Juarez, F.E.A.R. 2 runs well on a variety of hardware, and any current mid-range card will handle the game fine at its absolute top graphics settings and resolution.