Crysis:Warhead : (DirectX 10)

Now we make you cry, but only a little... This game is not only intense, it's engine demands high end hardware in order to be playable with any of the pretties enabled, its a true test for high end card, much less a midrange.

1680x1050

1680x1050

The MSI N260GTX works hard to keep up with Crysis, it does a fair job, until you turn on the eye candy at 1920x1200. The HD3850, well, we couldn't even get to the game at 1920x1200, it was literally a frame per second slide show.

Game Play

For game play results I played Crysis Warhead and L4D at 1920x1200 with and without AA/AF. Note that your results will vary, and remember, I have a lot of CPU horsepower pushing behind the N260GTX...

Crysis Warhead

Crysis is just, well, intensive. Running at 1920x1200 had several pain points, mouse movement was not as smooth as you want in an FPS and there were times when the Video had to catch up. Turning on AA/AF only enhanced this and made the game near unplayable, I would definitely back off to 1680x1050 if Crysis was my game of choice.

Left4Dead

Left4Dead played near flawless with smooth movement and little to no video jitter when moving about. Turning on AA/AF a slight jitter during intense scenes popped up here and there, not enough to deter me from playing the game, but noticeable none the less. If Left4Dead is your game, the MSI N260GTX is up to the task.

Prior to the start of the gameplay section, I took a few readings from GPUz:

 

Once I was done playing around in Crysis, I took another reading from GPUz to see how high the temps had gotten:

As you can see, the MSI cooling keeps the GPU's operating well within spec's, even at MSI overclocked pace while pushing the GPU's hard. 

Image Quality

With SM3.0/HDR the MSI N260GTX does not dissapoint.  L4D and Crysis played well and looked damn good doing it.  Here is a snapshot of L4D with and without AA/AF:

Over on the 2D side of things, we found the DVI quality to look very good, as good as we have seen in fact.  For desktop use, the fonts were sharp and unmistakable at 1920x1200 on a KDS-K-2626 monitor.

Final Words

The increased performance of the over the baseline 260 is measurable, and if you are sitting on a generation ago (or two) graphics solution you will net a nice gain over what's in your case right now. This card took a beating and just kept going, while Crysis might not be it's fortay, it has enough horsepower under those fans to get you moving and playing at decent resolutions.  You will want to make sure your PSU is up to the task, as this is no slouch when it comes to hunger on the power intake, however, that is the only downside I found while mucking about with this card. 

has paired all of that with a downright sexy design, a little bit of future proofing and all at a price that doesn't force you to give up coffee on the odd days. Looks like an all around win doesn't it.

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