Our test system was Windows Vista Home Ultimate with ATI Catalyst 8.5.2 beta drivers and Forceware 177.41. The highest setting was tested except in 3DMark and DirectX10 was always used. FRAPS and custom time demos were used.

Call of Duty 4 is one game that has shined with ATI's cards thanks to some driver work on their part and the Radeon HD 4870 normally beats a stock clock GeForce GTX 260. The overclocked Asus, however, best a 4870 at 1920x1200 and at 2560x1600.

Nvidia and Crysis seem to go hand in hand so it isn't too much a shock here to see the Asus GTX 260 TOP come out ahead of ATI's 4870 though the 4870 X2 is a little more surprising and owing to Crysis' CPU intensive nature.

In Half-Life 2: Episode 2 it is the Asus GeForce GTX 260 OC again by a hair above the normal Radeon HD 4870 which seems to be a continuing trend.