Vista Tutorial - frame rates

it's a query from looking at where pc mags seem to get their frame rate's from??

i read a review of an hd 3870 same as the one i use oddly enough that got less than half the avg fps i get while playing games like crysis and supreme commander and the like and they marked it down for this yet a comfortably manage a decent 40-45 fps in crysis on high yet these mags have it at less than 20 in some cases.

i know i am going to regret saying this but are these magzines being payed off or something cause some of the low end nvdia cards were outperforming the 3870 x2 as well according to these loons which i am sure even an nvidia enthusiast will agree is a wee bit silly. considering the x2 performs nearly as well if not better in some cases than even the top nvidia card last i checked at least not including their gx2 thingy

so where do they get thier results from and how as buyers are we supposed to judge what to buy if the magazines are misrepresenting the kit it's a shame.

thanks for reading and if you have any comments please feal free to leave them too i would be interested to know if others are experencing higher frame rates than the so called experts say we should get !!

Check the settings for what they tested at. Despite their advantages in some other areas, ATI cards are notoriously mediocre at anti-aliasing. Putting AA at 4 is an easy way to kill scores for an ATI card. To make up for it, most of us just use a higher resolution, which resolves most of the issue anyway.

Personally, I'm running a pair of 3870 Toxics in Crossfire right now. I've had no issues and don't put a lot of faith in the magazines. Chipsets make a difference, CPUs make a difference, the way the particular program was written makes a difference, and so on ad inifinitum. I've had friends argue this with me a lot, but I'm inclined to believe that a lot of those "definitive tests" are skewed in nVidia's favor, since my ATI cards can beat theirs in situations that aren't tested in the mags.

Just my two cents worth, though.

nope i agree