The battle of the HTPC cards, Galaxy’s GT 520 vs. HD 6450 (GDDR5 vs. GDDR3)
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead (L4D) is a 2008 co-op first-person shooter that was developed by Turtle Rock Studios and purchased by Valve Corporation during its development. Left 4 Dead uses Valve’s proprietary Source engine . L4D is set in the aftermath of a worldwide pandemic which pits its four protagonists against hordes of the infected zombies.
There are four game modes: a single-player mode in which your allies are controlled by AI; a four-player, co-op campaign mode; an eight-player online versus mode; and a four-player survival mode. In all modes, an artificial intelligence (AI), dubbed the “Director”, controls pacing and spawns, to create a more dynamic experience with increased replay value. It is best as a multiplayer game with humans.
There is no built-in benchmark, so we created our own custom time demo which is very repeatable. The game is updated regularly by Steam and we chose the highest detail settings and 8xAA. First we test at 1680×1050 resolution:
The HD 6450 cannot run this bench with 8xAA. On to our next chart at 1280×720 but with 2xAA:
Left 4 Dead leaves the old GT 220 behind. We see the HD 6450 being mauled by the GT 520 and the GDDR5 version does not quite make up for it.