Battlefield 4 Graphics Performance Overview With Current Generation GPUs

High End Graphics Card Performance

At the lower resolutions all the high-end GPUs we tested tore through Battlefield 4, with everything at ultra, churning out 60 FPS or more. All GPUs are clearly capable and if you’re only running a single 1080p panel then quite honestly anything above a GTX 770 or R9 280X is overkill.

Moving onto the higher resolutions and all the graphics cards had to work a bit more, especially at Eyefinity/Surround. The AMD R9 290X and R9 290 do really well but our test wasn’t long enough for them to significantly throttle down (which they definitely will if you buy a reference design). Despite all the AMD rhetoric with Battlefield 4 Nvidia appear to have the advantage when considering stock vs stock performance with no throttling. Once you get stuck into a long gaming session and clock speeds start to settle from the heat output I think the GTX 780 Ti, GTX Titan and GTX 780 will both surpass the AMD R9 290X and R9 290 as Nvidia’s cards are much more thermally controlled. However, if cooling isn’t a limitation (e.g you watercool or have a non-reference air cooler) then you can see the R9 290X and R9 290 are both excellent performers for their price – particularly the R9 290 which beats the GTX Titan at 5760 x 1080. Interestingly at triple screen gaming there is just 3 FPS separating the R9 290, R9 290X, GTX 780 Ti and GTX Titan. Clearly both AMD and Nvidia have competent solutions here, I think Nvidia have the edge performance wise but AMD have the value for money advantage as we’ve come to expect. AMD’s Mantle may change things but until then Nvidia have the more refined offerings in my opinion.