Shortly after another disaster in Chernobyl, the authorities surround the area with the Russian equivalent of the U.S. National Guard, and they begin to hear weird screams and rumblings coming from within. After a while though, most of them are returned to earlier posts. Curiosity gets the better of some people, so they sneak into the 30-kilometer area to do some good old-fashioned investigating. These people are called Stalkers, and they report back to the authorities with their findings.

The 3D engine shines in a few key areas, all crucial in shaping the game's atmosphere. It's got a huge draw distance, which leads to the palpable feeling that this is a big world. Lighting and shadowing are its other big strengths. For this benchmark we have the in-game settings at maximum (AA/AF enabled), Dynamic lighting was enabled.

Image Quality setting:

• In-game Software Anti Aliasing enabled
• 16x anisotropic filtering
• Dynamic lighting enabled

Stalker did not like quad GPUs very much, until we hit 2560x1600 where we noticed a 25% gain in overall performance. That's too little to justify another 550 USD I'm afraid.

CrossfireX: Call of Duty 4

Activision recently released Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the next installment in the popular war game series. Moving away from the World War II setting, Modern Warfare instead centers around a conflict involving Russia and the Middle East. And hey, you even get to die ... and then continue the game in the past.

Image Quality setting:

• 4x Anti Aliasing
• 16x anisotropic filtering
• All settings maxed out

I bet that some of you are saying .. hahahha eat that 'biaaach'. That's just amazing isn't it? Quite honestly guys, above 60 FPS on average really it doesn't make a difference anymore on an LCD. But still, that's a lot of horsepower. Dang!