Fallout 3 is based on the same engine used by The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and it is a DirectX 9.0c (Shader 3.0) game. We configured the game with “low” image quality settings at 1024x768. To measure performance, we used the FRAPS utility running an outdoor scene at God mode, running through enemy fire, triggering post processing effects, and ending with a big explosion in front of Dupont Circle. The results below are in frames per second (FPS).

Biostar TA785GE 128M was 6.62% faster than Sapphire PI-AM2RS780G (AMD 780G) and 47.53% faster than ECS A785GM-M (AMD 785G). ECS A790GXM-A (AMD 790GX with 128 MB), however, was 16.27% faster than the reviewed motherboard.

A 64-bit Radeon HD 3450 was 7.66% faster than the on-board video from the reviewed motherboard. When this video card was configured to run under CrossFire mode with the on-board video, performance increased 79.79%.

However on a newer game like Fallout 3 the frame rates achieved by all motherboards were way below 30 FPS, meaning that playing a new game using on-board video is close to impossible.