Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Publisher: Activision

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is different to all previous Call of Duty games, as it moves the action out of the World War II era and into the modern day. We have used the full version of the game with the 1.6 patch applied.

The game runs on a proprietary engine, which includes features like true world dynamic lighting, HDR lighting, dynamic shadowing and depth of field. Unlike most triple-A games that were launched late in 2007, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare only uses a DirectX 9.0 renderer and, given the realistic nature of the graphics, it proves that there's still life left in the old dog!

For our gameplay testing, we did a 90 second manual run through in the second mission of the game. All of the in-game settings were set to their maximum values, including texture details which were configured to 'Extra'. The 'Dual Video Cards' option was enabled for the multi-GPU configurations, but was disabled for all single GPU cards.

Finally, anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering were controlled from inside the game.

AMD ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare AMD ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

1680x1050 4xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
  • BFG Tech GeForce GTX 260 OCX Maxcore
  • Zotac GeForce GTX 260 AMP!
  • HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+
  • Powercolor Radeon HD 4850 PCS+
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850
  • ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
  • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
    • 114.4
    • 58.0
    • 98.6
    • 53.0
    • 95.2
    • 59.0
    • 86.0
    • 53.0
    • 84.5
    • 52.0
    • 82.4
    • 46.0
    • 81.8
    • 52.0
    • 78.6
    • 47.0
    • 77.9
    • 47.0
    • 75.9
    • 46.0
    • 75.1
    • 49.0
    • 70.6
    • 45.0
    • 65.7
    • 33.0
    • 50.0
    • 30.0
0
25
50
75
100
125
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

1920x1200 0xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
  • HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX
  • BFG Tech GeForce GTX 260 OCX Maxcore
  • ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
  • Powercolor Radeon HD 4850 PCS+
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850
  • Zotac GeForce GTX 260 AMP!
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
  • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
    • 127.2
    • 69.0
    • 123.2
    • 68.0
    • 121.7
    • 61.0
    • 101.4
    • 57.0
    • 98.7
    • 58.0
    • 96.7
    • 57.0
    • 96.6
    • 46.0
    • 95.4
    • 57.0
    • 94.1
    • 55.0
    • 91.3
    • 53.0
    • 89.5
    • 52.0
    • 84.3
    • 49.0
    • 79.2
    • 48.0
    • 63.5
    • 39.0
0
25
50
75
100
125
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

1920x1200 4xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • BFG Tech GeForce GTX 260 OCX Maxcore
  • Zotac GeForce GTX 260 AMP!
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
  • HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX
  • Powercolor Radeon HD 4850 PCS+
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850
  • ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
  • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
    • 100.6
    • 49.0
    • 77.7
    • 47.0
    • 76.5
    • 48.0
    • 75.1
    • 46.0
    • 72.5
    • 43.0
    • 71.0
    • 48.0
    • 69.0
    • 42.0
    • 66.5
    • 39.0
    • 64.4
    • 41.0
    • 63.1
    • 38.0
    • 58.8
    • 38.0
    • 56.0
    • 29.0
    • 51.0
    • 31.0
    • 41.6
    • 26.0
0
25
50
75
100
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

2560x1600 0xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
  • BFG Tech GeForce GTX 260 OCX Maxcore
  • ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+
  • Zotac GeForce GTX 260 AMP!
  • HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX
  • Powercolor Radeon HD 4850 PCS+
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
  • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
    • 99.5
    • 48.0
    • 75.0
    • 43.0
    • 74.0
    • 44.0
    • 72.1
    • 41.0
    • 68.6
    • 41.0
    • 65.9
    • 32.0
    • 64.0
    • 38.0
    • 63.6
    • 38.0
    • 63.4
    • 39.0
    • 59.9
    • 38.0
    • 59.0
    • 34.0
    • 56.7
    • 37.0
    • 56.1
    • 34.0
    • 44.7
    • 26.0
0
25
50
75
100
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

2560x1600 2xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
  • BFG Tech GeForce GTX 260 OCX Maxcore
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • Zotac GeForce GTX 260 AMP!
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
  • HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX
  • Powercolor Radeon HD 4850 PCS+
  • ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850
  • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
    • 72.7
    • 33.0
    • 56.7
    • 34.0
    • 52.7
    • 34.0
    • 52.0
    • 33.0
    • 50.7
    • 31.0
    • 49.5
    • 32.0
    • 48.4
    • 31.0
    • 45.0
    • 27.0
    • 43.6
    • 28.0
    • 42.1
    • 26.0
    • 41.4
    • 22.0
    • 40.9
    • 28.0
    • 39.3
    • 25.0
    • 31.2
    • 21.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

2560x1600 4xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • BFG Tech GeForce GTX 260 OCX Maxcore
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • Zotac GeForce GTX 260 AMP!
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
  • HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX
  • Powercolor Radeon HD 4850 PCS+
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850
  • ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
  • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
    • 69.6
    • 34.0
    • 53.0
    • 31.0
    • 52.6
    • 31.0
    • 51.4
    • 32.0
    • 48.9
    • 31.0
    • 48.3
    • 30.0
    • 46.5
    • 27.0
    • 43.9
    • 27.0
    • 41.9
    • 27.0
    • 41.0
    • 26.0
    • 37.9
    • 22.0
    • 34.4
    • 15.0
    • 33.9
    • 21.0
    • 27.5
    • 17.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Like Crysis, Call of Duty 4 appears to show the biggest benefits to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB's additional 512MB of video memory when 4xAA is applied at high resolution. At both 1,920 x 1,200 4xAA 16xAF and 2,560 x 1,600 4xAA 16xAF, we witnessed an eight percent performance increase on the 4870 1GB. This took the 4870 from competing with Zotac's pre-overclocked GeForce GTX 260 AMP! Edition to competing with a stock-clocked GeForce GTX 280!
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October 14 2021 | 15:04