Watercooled GeForce GTX 280 Showdown

Written by Harry Butler

November 25, 2008 | 08:30

Tags: #coolant #gt200 #gtx-280 #overclocked #overclocking #radiator #review #water #watercooled

Companies: #bfg-and-msi #nvidia

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.

Watercooled GeForce GTX 280 Showdown Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Watercooled GeForce GTX 280 Showdown Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

1680x1050 4xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • BFG GeForce GTX 280 H2OC
  • MSI GeForce GTX 280 HydroGen
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB
    • 146.0
    • 98.0
    • 130.5
    • 86.0
    • 98.9
    • 60.0
    • 96.7
    • 58.0
    • 88.7
    • 54.0
    • 84.1
    • 56.0
    • 82.7
    • 55.0
    • 79.5
    • 47.0
    • 79.5
    • 47.0
    • 70.2
    • 43.0
0
25
50
75
100
125
150
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

1,920 x 1,200, 0xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • MSI GeForce GTX 280 HydroGen
  • BFG GeForce GTX 280 H2OC
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB
    • 161.4
    • 103.0
    • 149.8
    • 98.0
    • 107.8
    • 62.0
    • 107.4
    • 62.0
    • 100.7
    • 58.0
    • 98.4
    • 62.0
    • 96.6
    • 66.0
    • 89.5
    • 51.0
    • 81.7
    • 50.0
    • 77.3
    • 49.0
0
25
50
75
100
125
150
175
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

1,920 x 1,200, 4xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • BFG GeForce GTX 280 H2OC
  • MSI GeForce GTX 280 HydroGen
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB
    • 136.2
    • 90.0
    • 115.2
    • 70.0
    • 85.7
    • 52.0
    • 84.8
    • 52.0
    • 75.8
    • 47.0
    • 69.2
    • 45.0
    • 69.0
    • 44.0
    • 67.9
    • 41.0
    • 58.5
    • 36.0
    • 54.2
    • 34.0
0
25
50
75
100
125
150
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

2,560 x 1,600, 0xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • BFG GeForce GTX 280 H2OC
  • MSI GeForce GTX 280 HydroGen
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB
    • 128.0
    • 83.0
    • 114.4
    • 71.0
    • 79.4
    • 46.0
    • 78.0
    • 46.0
    • 72.1
    • 42.0
    • 65.6
    • 42.0
    • 60.6
    • 40.0
    • 60.3
    • 37.0
    • 58.7
    • 34.0
    • 51.4
    • 33.0
0
25
50
75
100
125
150
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

2,560 x 1,600, 2xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • BFG GeForce GTX 280 H2OC
  • MSI GeForce GTX 280 HydroGen
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB
    • 94.5
    • 57.0
    • 77.1
    • 49.0
    • 61.7
    • 39.0
    • 61.0
    • 39.0
    • 55.5
    • 35.0
    • 48.9
    • 31.0
    • 47.2
    • 31.0
    • 46.5
    • 29.0
    • 42.9
    • 28.0
    • 36.4
    • 23.0
0
25
50
75
100
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

2,560 x 1,600, 4xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • BFG GeForce GTX 280 H2OC
  • MSI GeForce GTX 280 HydroGen
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB
    • 93.0
    • 56.0
    • 76.0
    • 48.0
    • 59.5
    • 36.0
    • 58.0
    • 36.0
    • 52.4
    • 33.0
    • 46.7
    • 29.0
    • 45.9
    • 31.0
    • 45.1
    • 29.0
    • 34.4
    • 22.0
    • 31.5
    • 16.0
0
25
50
75
100
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

COD4 is infamously memory hungry, so it's no surprise to see the BFG GeForce GTX 280 H₂OC with its higher memory clock retake the lead here. Both watercooled cards show excellent frame rate improvements of over ten percent in some places over a stock GTX 280 – that's pretty good to see.
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