Half-Life 2 is a popular franchise and we benchmark the video cards using Episode Two with the aid of HOC Half-Life 2 Episode Two benchmarking utility using the “HOC Demo 1” provided by this program. We ran the game in three 16:10 widescreen resolutions, 1680x1050, 1920x1200 and 2560x1600, under two scenarios. First with quality set to maximum, bilinear filtering and anti-aliasing set to x0. This configuration we are calling “low” on the charts and tables below. Then we maxed out image quality settings, enabling x16 anisotropic filtering and 16xQCS anti-aliasing. This configuration we are calling “high” on our charts and tables. We updated the game up to the June 9^th 2008 patch.

Half-Life 2: Episode Two - 1680x1050 – Low	Score	Difference
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	160.4	2.62%
GeForce GTX 280	156.3
GeForce 9800 GTX	153.8	1.63%
Radeon HD 3870	145.7	7.28%
GeForce 9800 GX2	136.8	14.25%

Half-Life 2: Episode Two - 1920x1200 – Low	Score	Difference
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	156.7	0.26%
GeForce GTX 280	156.3
GeForce 9800 GTX	146.9	6.40%
GeForce 9800 GX2	135.2	15.61%
Radeon HD 3870	120.1	30.14%

Half-Life 2: Episode Two - 2560x1600 – Low	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	145.1
GeForce 9800 GX2	130.6	11.10%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	129.7	11.87%
GeForce 9800 GTX	107.9	34.48%
Radeon HD 3870	72.8	99.31%

Half-Life 2: Episode Two - 1680x1050 – High	Score	Difference
GeForce 9800 GTX	137.9	54.42%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	126.1	41.21%
GeForce 9800 GX2	125.4	40.43%
GeForce GTX 280	89.3
Radeon HD 3870	68.3	30.7%

Half-Life 2: Episode Two - 1920x1200 – High	Score	Difference
GeForce 9800 GTX	116.3	65.43%
GeForce 9800 GX2	111.1	58.04%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	106.5	51.49%
GeForce GTX 280	70.3
Radeon HD 3870	56.8	23.77%

Half-Life 2: Episode Two - 2560x1600 – High	Score	Difference
GeForce 9800 GTX	71.3	100.85%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	50.6	42.54%
GeForce 9800 GX2	37.5	5.63%
GeForce GTX 280	35.5
Radeon HD 3870	34.9	1.72%