Benchmarks: Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander
Opposing Fronts is the standalone expansion pack to Company of Heroes, a real-time strategy game released late last year. The expansion implements a Dynamic Weather Effects system, which consists primarily of real time weather effects and day-to-night time transitions.
Running Company of Heroes Opposing Fronts at 1920x1200 using the maximum in-game quality settings with the DirectX 9 rendering mode is no challenge for the GeForce 9800 GTX+. This affordable graphics card rendered a staggering 140fps, while its cut down version, the GeForce 9800 GT managed to average 106fps. The Radeon HD 4850, while not nearly as impressive, still managed a highly playable 102fps, followed by the Radeon HD 4830 with 91fps.
The old budget king the GeForce 9600 GT averaged 75fps, followed by a much slower Radeon HD 4670 with 53fps. The Radeon HD 4650 fell to just 38fps, while the GeForce 8600 GTS was the next fastest card tested with an average output of just 31fps. The Radeon HD 2600 XT struggled to deliver playable performance with just 29fps, followed by the GeForce 9500 GT and 8600 GT. These budget cards were better at 1680x1050 as you may have suspected and they are able to deliver perfectly playable performance at 1440x900.
Supreme Commander Benchmarks
Supreme Commander is another real-time strategy game designed by Chris Taylor and developed by Gas Powered Games. The game is considered to be the spiritual successor to Taylor's 1997 game, Total Annihilation. The game was released on early 2007 and a standalone expansion, Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance, was released the same year.
Supreme Commander is a visually attractive and highly demanding game though again the mid-range graphics cards performed rather well here.
The GeForce 9800 GTX+ managed 55fps at 1920x1200, delivering very playable performance. The Radeon HD 4850 was just as good with 54fps, while its younger part the Radeon HD 4830 was also remarkable averaging 49fps.
The GeForce 9600 GT and Radeon HD 4670 averaged 38fps and while this is still playable, there were moments of noticeable lag at this high resolution. Considering we were playing at 1920x1200 in a demanding RTS with maximum graphics quality settings, these results are impressive for cards costing around $100.
The budget cards, such as the Radeon HD 4650, managed to average 34fps, while the GeForce 8600 GTS rendered just 31fps. Even at 1440x900 the budget cards struggled, with the GeForce 8600 GT and 9500 GT delivering no more than 25fps.