Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is different to all previous Call of Duty games, as it moves the action out of the World War II era and into the modern day. We have used the full version of the game with the 1.5 patch applied.
The game runs on a proprietary engine, which includes features like true world dynamic lighting, HDR lighting, dynamic shadowing and depth of field. Unlike most triple-A games that were launched late in 2007, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare only uses a DirectX 9.0 renderer and, given the realistic nature of the graphics, it proves that there's still life left in the old dog!
For our gameplay testing, we did a 90 second manual run through in the second mission of the game. All of the in-game settings were set to their maximum values, including texture details which were configured to 'Extra'. The 'Dual Video Cards' option was enabled for the multi-GPU configurations, but was disabled for all single GPU cards.
Finally, anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering were controlled from inside the game.
Call of Duty 4
1680x1050, 4xAA, 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
Nvidia Geforce 9800 GX2
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
ATI Radeon HD 4870
Sapphire ATI Radeon 4850 TOXIC
ATI Radeon HD 4850
Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX
ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
ATI Radeon HD 3870
99.3
56.0
95.5
60.0
79.3
43.0
75.8
51.0
68.5
43.0
66.5
43.0
65.6
38.0
63.7
36.0
57.7
34.0
49.4
32.0
49.0
27.0
41.3
27.0
0
25
50
75
100
Frames Per Second
Average
Minimum
Call of Duty 4
1920x1200, 0xAA, 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail
Nvidia Geforce 9800 GX2
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
ATI Radeon HD 4870
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
Sapphire ATI Radeon 4850 TOXIC
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX
ATI Radeon HD 4850
ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
ATI Radeon HD 3870
123.6
68.0
108.4
63.0
105.4
57.0
87.9
48.0
87.7
59.0
87.1
49.0
85.7
52.0
78.1
44.0
76.7
47.0
64.3
39.0
58.0
36.0
56.7
35.0
0
25
50
75
100
125
Frames Per Second
Average
Minimum
Call of Duty 4
1920x1200, 4xAA, 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
Nvidia Geforce 9800 GX2
ATI Radeon HD 4870
Sapphire ATI Radeon 4850 TOXIC
Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
ATI Radeon HD 4850
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
ATI Radeon HD 3870
88.4
48.0
80.7
40.0
77.5
28.0
66.0
53.0
57.8
38.0
57.0
34.0
55.1
35.0
53.1
32.0
48.7
29.0
42.0
25.0
39.1
24.0
35.1
21.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Frames Per Second
Average
Minimum
Call of Duty 4
2560x1600, 0xAA, 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail
Nvidia Geforce 9800 GX2
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
ATI Radeon HD 4870
Sapphire ATI Radeon 4850 TOXIC
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX
ATI Radeon HD 4850
ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
ATI Radeon HD 3870
95.2
54.0
87.0
45.0
74.9
35.0
63.6
36.0
61.1
34.0
58.2
39.0
54.3
34.0
53.5
30.0
50.9
29.0
43.5
28.0
43.0
26.0
36.7
23.0
0
25
50
75
100
Frames Per Second
Average
Minimum
Call of Duty 4
2560x1600, 2xAA, 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail
Nvidia Geforce 9800 GX2
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
ATI Radeon HD 4870
Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX
Sapphire ATI Radeon 4850 TOXIC
ATI Radeon HD 4850
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
ATI Radeon HD 3870
66.5
39.0
65.1
34.0
56.3
32.0
44.3
29.0
44.3
28.0
41.8
26.0
39.4
25.0
37.5
24.0
36.2
22.0
35.0
20.0
32.8
20.0
21.4
14.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Frames Per Second
Average
Minimum
Call of Duty 4
2560x1600, 4xAA, 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
Nvidia Geforce 9800 GX2
ATI Radeon HD 4870
Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
Sapphire ATI Radeon 4850 TOXIC
ATI Radeon HD 4850
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
ATI Radeon HD 3870
61.8
33.0
49.0
29.0
43.8
16.0
40.3
18.0
39.5
24.0
37.4
23.0
35.2
21.0
35.0
20.0
33.6
20.0
29.0
15.0
24.2
15.0
20.6
12.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Frames Per Second
Average
Minimum
In Call of Duty 4, the Sapphire HD 4850 TOXIC once again demonstrates between a three and eight percent performance advantage in most of our tests when compared against a stock clocked Radeon HD 4850. However, at higher resolutions the extra grunt of the HD 4850 TOXIC's core is able demonstrate an impressive performance increase - with AA on there is diminishing returns but with AA off there's a meaty difference in performance.