Performance - Crysis WarHEAD | Far Cry 2

Crysis Warhead DX10

As in last year's game, expect to encounter dense jungle environments, barren ice fields, Korean soldiers and plenty of flying aliens. There's no denying that this is more of the same, except here it's a more tightly woven experience with a little less freedom to explore.
With a top-end PC (although Warhead has supposedly benefited from an improved game engine, you'll still need a fairly beefy system) rest assured, developer Crytek has enhanced more than just the graphics engine.

Vehicles are more fun to drive, firefights are more intense and focused, and aliens do more than just float around you. More emphasis on the open-ended environments would have been welcome, but a more exciting (though shorter) campaign, a new multiplayer mode, and a whole bunch of new maps make Crysis Warhead an excellent expansion to one of last year's best shooters.

Crysis Warhead has good looks. As mentioned before, the game looks better than Crysis, and it runs better too. Our test machine that struggled a bit to run the original at high settings ran Warhead smoothly with the same settings. Yet as much as you may have heard about Crysis' technical prowess, you'll still be impressed when you feast your eyes on the swaying vegetation, surging water, and expressive animations. Outstanding graphics. Couldn't say more here.

We up the ante a little more by enabling DX10. Though we really wanted to push 4x AA here. Current day graphics cards yet again run out of memory, in the highest resolutions, somewhere where this 6GB kit will definitely help.

• Level Ambush
• Codepath DX10
• Anti-Aliasing 2x MSAA
• In game Quality mode Gamer

BTW we test games and application just the way you use them at home. We do not lower resolutions or forfeit image quality. Our tests simulate real-world situations.

As you can see, scaling from 1333 MHz memory all the way towards 2000 MHz makes a difference at 1024x768. But once we pass 1280x1024 that difference vanishes into thin air.

Mind you that to avoid a GPU limitation, we used a GeForce GTX 295 (!).

Far Cry 2

Throw your memory back to the year 2004 and the release of the innovative Far Cry on PC. Developer Crytek managed to fashion one of the most convincing and striking locales in all of gaming, and satisfied gamers with the freedom to pass through the landscape and tackle enemies in almost any way they saw fit. You surely remember Jack Carver and that things were about to get seriously messed up for you? Well, tough luck. You are no longer at that deserted tropical island but hop into a jeep and arrive at the sandy savannah surroundings of Africa. And that's a change... as much as you'll no longer run into any mutants, aliens, or any superpowers or psychic powers. Also - you are no longer Jack Carver, you assume the role of one of nine different mercenaries who are embedded in the midst of a brutal civil war which rages in an imaginary African nation.
Everything that goes down is involved in a dirty little bush war in central Africa and you'll have to use a rusty AK-47 and whatever bits of scavenged land mine you can duct-tape together. Two factions struggle for supremacy: the United Front for Liberation and Labour and the Alliance for Popular Resistance, and both are known for blood and control.

• Image Quality 'Very High' mode
• Antialisasing 2xAA
• DX10 codepath
• HDR enabled

Now as you can see, the Crysis WarHEAD result do not account for all titles. This one, Far Cry 2, is less GPU bound though and as result we see a bit more scaling. At 1280x1024 we still see a difference of 7 FPS in-between 1333 MHz JEDEC timed memory and the 2000 MHz Blade memory.

At 160x12 that difference is already 4 FPS. As you can seem faster memory definitely does help. But spending more money on a faster GPU, would get you instantly more bang for buck. That's the god honest truth here.