2560x1600: At 2560x1600, the GeForce GTX 295 ruled the day as far as performance was concerned, with the GeForce GTX 285 and Radeon HD 5870 trailing close behind. Of all nine video cards we tested at 2560x1600, the Radeon HD 5850 proved to be a good value, giving us a great experience with 4X MSAA at this high resolution for a relatively minor amount of money.

1920x1200: At 1920x1200, the GeForce GTX 275 was a great performer, but the GeForce GTS 250 was the very best value. Coming in at just over $100, it offered a great performance with 8X CSAA at 1920x1200. Other video cards certainly were capable of outperforming it, but at a steep price premium for the gameplay advantage offered.

1680x1050: Gaming at 1680x1050 is a wondrously inexpensive proposition, thanks to the high performance of current mainstream tier video cards. Again, the GeForce GTS 250 shone brightly, matching the Radeon HD 5770 for the experience delivered. Both the GeForce GTS 250 and Radeon HD 5770 outperformed the diminutive Radeon HD 5750, which still performed respectably for a video card of its price. CPU and Memory Utilization

Using an NVIDIA video card, our CPU was utilized about 30% average across all four cores. With the AMD ATI video card installed, it was half that amount. It looks to be related to the bug we saw where ATI Radeon performance dropped significantly during in-game cinematic sequences. Memory usage was typical, with Resident Evil 5 using slightly more system memory with an NVIDIA video card installed than with AMD’s ATI video card installed.