Battlefield 4 Graphics Performance Overview With Current Generation GPUs

Mid-Range Graphics Card Performance

Moving on to the “mid-range” graphics cards, which by any measure are still quite high end, and we can see it is another mixed bag. At the top end we can see the AMD R9-270X punching well above its weight, coming in at $199 it is a much better value solution for Battlefield than Nvidia’s $250 GTX 760 which performs only marginally better for 25% more cost. If we had an OC version of the R9 270X to show you results of then the differences between it and overclocked GTX 760 SKU we had would be minimal. Both the GTX 760 and R9 270X are absolutely ideal for maxing out Battlefield 4 on a single 1080p panel, the GTX 760 has the slight edge but you’d expect that for the higher premium. As you start to sink down a bit AMD still have the advantage, the R9 270 at $179 wipes floor of the GTX 660 which is equivalently priced. Both struggle to maintain a consistently high 1080p framerate at ultra but if you dropped back to the Very High preset or dropped some of the AA then you’d easily manage a comfortable 50-60FPS average. At the lower end Nvidia swings a punch back as the GTX 650 Ti Boost is superior to the equivalently priced R7 260X. If you’re on a tight budget both of these graphics cards make highly competent 1080p solutions, you’d have to drop some of the “bells and whistles”, maybe falling back to Very High with reduced AA, to get 45+ FPS but for the price I think that’s not bad at all.

At higher resolutions all the graphics cards struggled. We can see that none of them are cut out for Eyefinity or Surround gaming and even if you dropped settings to the Medium preset it is unlikely you’d be able to maintain playable framerates. At 2560 x 1440 the picture is different. I think the GTX 760, R9 270X and R9 270 are all cut out for 1440p gaming if you are willing to drop some of the settings down a few notches. It certainly is impressive that AMD can offer a $179 card (the R9 270) that is so capable of taking on 1440p gaming.