Far Cry is a heavy game based on the Shader 3.0 (DirectX 9.0c) programming model. We’ve updated the game to version 1.4. To measure the performance we run four times the demo created by German magazine PC Games Hardware (PCGH) and the results presented below are an arithmetic average of the collected data. We used the HardwareOC Far Cry Benchmark 1.7 utility to help us collecting data.

Since we are comparing high-end cards, we ran this game in higher resolutions, as performance difference between high-end video cards is more expressive on such resolutions. We chose three resolutions, 1600x1200, 1920x1440 and 2048x1536. At each resolution we simulated two scenarios, first with no image quality enhancements enabled and graphics details set to “maximum” (this scenario we called “low”) and then with anti-aliasing set at 8x, anisotropic filtering set at 16x and graphics details set to “ultra” (this scenario we called “high”). On all scenarios we set the rendering engine to Shader 3.0. The results, given in frames per second, you check below. All video cards listed below were running with the default clock rates defined by the chip manufacturer.

Far Cry 1.4 - 1600x1200 - Low	Score	Difference
GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB (MSI)	144.75	13.70%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (XFX)	143.59	12.79%
GeForce 7950 GT (Zogis)	127.31
Radeon X1950 Pro (PowerColor)	112.27	13.40%
GeForce 7900 GT (XFX)	108.81	17.00%
GeForce 7800 GTX (XFX)	107.90	17.99%
GeForce 7800 GT (nVidia)	91.98	38.41%

Far Cry 1.4 - 1920x1440 - Low	Score	Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 (XFX)	138.05	39.07%
GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB (MSI)	120.16	21.04%
GeForce 7950 GT (Zogis)	99.27
Radeon X1950 Pro (PowerColor)	86.91	14.22%
GeForce 7900 GT (XFX)	82.73	19.99%
GeForce 7800 GTX (XFX)	80.62	23.13%
GeForce 7800 GT (nVidia)	69.26	43.33%

Far Cry 1.4 - 2048x1536 - Low	Score	Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 (XFX)	132.31	47.93%
GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB (MSI)	108.58	21.40%
GeForce 7950 GT (Zogis)	89.44
Radeon X1950 Pro (PowerColor)	74.99	19.27%
GeForce 7900 GT (XFX)	74.45	20.13%
GeForce 7800 GTX (XFX)	72.60	23.20%
GeForce 7800 GT (nVidia)	62.17	43.86%

Far Cry 1.4 - 1600x1200 - High	Score	Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 (XFX)	133.22	37.94%
GeForce 7950 GT (Zogis)	96.58
GeForce 7900 GT (XFX)	81.60	18.36%
GeForce 7800 GTX (XFX)	78.61	22.86%
Radeon X1950 Pro (PowerColor)	75.58	27.79%
GeForce 7800 GT (nVidia)	67.41	43.27%
GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB (MSI)	62.85	53.67%

Far Cry 1.4 - 1920x1440 - High	Score	Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 (XFX)	109.73	51.29%
GeForce 7950 GT (Zogis)	72.53
GeForce 7900 GT (XFX)	60.91	19.08%
GeForce 7800 GTX (XFX)	58.93	23.08%
Radeon X1950 Pro (PowerColor)	57.07	27.09%
GeForce 7800 GT (nVidia)	50.04	44.94%
GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB (MSI)	38.58	88.00%

Far Cry 1.4 - 2048x1536 - High	Score	Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 (XFX)	100.70	53.83%
GeForce 7950 GT (Zogis)	65.46
GeForce 7900 GT (XFX)	54.82	19.41%
GeForce 7800 GTX (XFX)	52.86	23.84%
Radeon X1950 Pro (PowerColor)	49.77	31.53%
GeForce 7800 GT (nVidia)	44.99	45.50%
GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB (MSI)	29.25	123.79%