What's the Fastest Current Graphics Card?

Final Verdict

Despite all three of these cards being mature products, there’s still a great deal of difference in performance between them and driver limitations clearly play a big part in this. From Nvidia’s multi-GPU driver bug in Fallout 3 to the Radeon HD 4870 X2’s disappointing performance in Dawn of War 2, it’s clear that opting for a multi-GPU card, or setup, still brings with a lot of risks and that these cards are still a long way from delivering consistently reliable performance.

However, when the driver and hardware come together both the multi-GPU cards are able to strut their stuff and leave the single GPU GeForce GTX 285 in the dust. So, without further ado, let’s check the score card.

Radeon HD 4870 X2

Winner – Fallout 3 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
The HD 4870 X2 is still a very fast card, and in some titles like Fallout 3 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. it shows this to great effect, trouncing the more expensive GTX 295 in both. However, in Crysis and Call of Duty it offers notably slower frame rates than the 295 and suffers from drivers issues that delivered poor minimum frame rates in both Dawn of War 2 and Call of Duty under certain circumstances. It’s also a poor folder and while this won’t be to everyone’s concerns, it’s a disappointment for those that will. Add to this high power consumption and inferno-like levels of heat and the HD 4870 X2, while a capable bit of kit, is still far from ideal.

GeForce GTX 285

Winner – Dawn of War 2 and Power Consumption
Going into this test, we’d only expected the GTX 285 to win in the power consumption round so it was pleasing to see it best the multi-GPU cards in Dawn of War 2. It’s clear that this is a game that doesn’t exactly favour multi-GPUs, and while the 295 and HD 4870 X2 both struggled the GTX 285 with its faster single GPU fared much better. However, it’s hard to avoid the fact that when multi-GPU drivers worked, the GTX 285 was clearly outclassed, although it produced a much more reliable showing in every game than its dual GPU competition.

GeForce GTX 295

Winner – Crysis, Call of Duty, Folding@home, Thermals
The GeForce GTX 295 is our champion then, winning four of the eight rounds to lift the title. Superior performance in Crysis in Call of Duty demonstrated the card’s huge amount of performance potential and epic folding performance combined with remarkable cool operating temperatures for a multi-GPU card seals the deal. It's still far from perfect though and is a long way away from delivering world beating performance in every game.

Final Thoughts

So congratulations to the GeForce GTX 295, but before you all rush off to buy one, it’s important to note that none of these cards was able to land a knockout blow when it came to game performance. Both the GeForce GTX 295 and Radeon HD 4870 X2 suffered from painfully obvious multi-GPU driver issues that in some cases crippled performance to a level much slower than that of the single GeForce GTX 285. While the GTX 285 might not top the performance graphs in every game, it did reliably deliver at least playable performance with anti-aliasing enabled – a claim that neither the GeForce GTX 295 or Radeon HD 4870 X2 was able to make.

While the GeForce GTX 295 might have won our test here today then, the reality is that none of these three cards are perfect. The Radeon HD 4870 X2 has been on the market significantly longer than the GeForce GTX 295 for example - so if you bought one at launch at least you'd have had some good use out of it, still in the knowledge that it's at least a strong contender to consistently be the fastest graphics solution for 15-18 months! Arguably at no other point in recent history has a card had such a long shelf life. In addition, while we've concentrated completely on performance here, the Nvidia cards (especially the GeForce GTX 295) were often considerably more expensive than the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 throughout 2009, despite redesigns and die shrinks.

With that in mind, we can’t wait to see what the next generation of graphics cards brings and whether both ATI and Nvidia will continue to push single, large GPUs or multi-GPU solutions and successfully improve their drivers to compensate. Keep your eyes on bit-tech over the next few weeks for some exciting new GPU coverage.