Testing with CoD: Modern Warfare 2 the new Radeon HD 6970 averaged 73fps making it a single frame faster than the GeForce GTX 480. This was a near match to the GeForce GTX 570 performance while lagging behind the faster GTX 580 by a 16% margin. Against the dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970, the new HD 6970 was 19% slower though it was ~30% faster than the Radeon HD 5870. Call of Duty: Black Ops Fraps was used to benchmark the single player aspect of CoD: Black Ops. We measured frame rates during a minute of gameplay from the first single-player level (Operation 40). The test begins from the checkpoint where the player mans a machine gun on a plane trying to take off. As luck would have it this scene goes for a little over 60 seconds and the path is automated, so we could accurately run it over and over again. Again max in-game visuals were used, including 4xAA. The Black Ops results saw the new Radeon HD 6970 trailing the GeForce GTX 570 by a 5% margin while it was 13% slower than the GTX 580. With an average of 105fps at 1920x1200 and maxed out settings, there wasn’t much room for improvement anyway, the Radeon HD 6970 topped its predecessor with 24% better frame rates.
