You might’ve noticed that playing FarCry2, Batman and Crysis at the highest tested resolution, 2560x1600 (and no AA), results in minimum difference between the HD 5870 and GTX 480. Gaming with antialiasing isn’t working in HD 5870’s favor as it ends up as much as 50% slower in FarCry2 and Batman. Crysis reported pretty even performance while HAWX manages to put a better face on the Radeon HD 5870.

At 1920x1200 and no AA, Gainward GTX 480 outscores the HD 5870 by 16.7%  while turning on 4xAA results in 20.9% advantage. At 2560x1600, Gainward GTX 480 outruns the reference HD 5870 by 4% (no AA) and 12% (4xAA). These results show that antialiasing takes a higher performance toll on HD 5870s than on GTX 480 cards.

After turning on 4xAA at 1920x1200, we noticed that the GTX 480 performs 14.5% slower, whereas the HD 5870 takes an 18.7% hit. Increasing the resolution to 2560x1600 also takes its toll so turning on 4xAA on the GTX 480 results in 17.6% slower GTX 480 and 25.8% slower HD 5870 performance. Just for comparison, turning on antialiasing in FarCry2 and Batman at 2560x1600 results in the HD 5870 performing 38.4% and 82.8% slower performance, respectively. GTX 480’s performance toll is much lower – 19.7% in FarCry 2 and 25.3% in Batman.

The GTX 470 couldn’t defeat the HD 5870 as the latter card handles antialiasing much better than in FarCry2 and Batman. Both aforementioned games tend to prefer the GTX 470 when it comes to antialiasing. In HAWX, the GTX 470 lags behind the HD 5870 by 5.9% and 16.9% at 1900x1200 and 2560x1600, respectively. After turning antialiasing on, the differences duck to 3.4% and 11.9% respectively.