Real-world benchmarks

Now we move on to a far more important topic - Real-world game testing.  Here, we put the HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX through its paces under Windows Vista in no less than eight current game titles.  For a board of this level, we will be focusing our testing firstly at the broad target resolution of 1680x1050, followed by some more GPU intensive rendering at 1920x1200 to stress the board more fully.  This will be tested first without any anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering, followed by testing with 4x AA and 16x AF enabled to make use of some of the extra eye candy on offer with this part.

So, now you know what we're up to, let's crack straight on with our results!

Fallout 3

I'm sure Fallout 3 requires no introduction, game of the year contender that it is, with Bethesda's 21st century re-imagining of the Fallout universe offering compelling gameplay coupled with some top-notch graphics that remain challenging for a modern PC.  We test here using FRAPS at the games "Ultra High" settings.

While a reference Radeon HD 4850 sports a nice, smooth sixty frames per second frame rate at 1680x1050, HIS' offering boosts performance by about 4% to put a little extra sheen on the GPU's capabilities.

This performance delta increases to around 6.8% once anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering are enabled at this resolution, having an even more marked impact upon minimum frame rates.

The Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX continues to offer performance of over sixty frames per second at 1920x1200, as it moves close to 9% ahead of a reference clocked part.

Performance becomes a little more uncomfortable and jerky at our highest test settings, and we also see the HIS card's lead reduced to around 3% in this particular scenario.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is the latest title to make use of id Software's Doom 3 engine, while also integrating into it another of John Carmack's creations - MegaTexture.  The principle of MegaTexture is to enable developers to use massive textures to create realistic looking landscapes without hugely impacting graphics performance, a noble cause which appears to work pretty well in this title, bringing large outdoor arenas to the Doom 3 engine for the first time.  We test this title with all graphical details set to their highest levels.

At 1680x1050, both boards perform very well, with our HIS part clocking in close to 8.5% faster.

With anti-aliasing and anisotropy enabled, the TurboX's additional performance gives it sufficient leg-up to breach a sixty frames per second average, sporting a slightly shrunken 7.3% advantage in the process.

Performance continues to be playable for both boards at 1920x1200, while our factory overclocked board pulls out a 10.2% frame rate lead.

Even at our highest test settings performance isn't too shabby from either Radeon HD 4850 part, where once again the HIS IceQ 4 TurboX holds a reasonably strong lead of 7.7%.