The Games of Christmas '08: GPU Performance Part 1

Left 4 Dead: GPU Performance

For benching Left 4 Dead, we used a pre-recorded 5 minute timedemo taken on the Death Toll campaign during The Church mission. Framerates were captured with FRAPS.

1680 X 1050



2560 X 1600


Here we have some interesting results with the ATI cards being a bit more competitive at lower resolutions but even the HD 4870 1GB starts to slip a bit at 2560 X 1600. Speaking of the HD 4870 1GB, its performance is never far from the 512MB version in this game so we really have to question its use if you are a Left 4 Dead player. It is also very interesting to see the GTX 260 Core 216 card we are using having almost the exact same $ / FPS value as the outgoing GTX 260. Before we go any further, we need to say that every card benched here delivered more than acceptable performance in Left 4 Dead no matter what resolution was used.