Just as a note, I've added the 9800GTX+ to the list; some benchmarks perhaps might suggest that it'd go over the hump into the "egad" category, but I remain skeptical, since it's core is a modification of the G92.
Also, apparently, http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/252026-33-radeon-4870-512mb-newegg. As such, I took it as an excuse to throw it up on the list as well. It appears that even with the new HD 4000 cards,
Oblivion actually switches to favoring nVidia; the 4870 normally schools the GTX 260 in almost everything else for 60% the cost, and falls disturbingly close to the GTX 280 in spite of costing some 46% as much.
I'd also be a bit careful in trusting the benchmark results as an absolute figure; remember that no two people's testing in
Oblivion will yield the same results given the lack of any scripted timedemos for the game, (note to gamesas: FIX THIS for
Fallout 3) so their usefulness is limited to as a relative tool; you can compare it to other cards benchmarked at the same time to see how they compare, but if they got X number of FPS, chances are slim you'd get the same.
Remember, as I noted in the description:
- I'm uncertain if it's possible - I recognize that someone will be able to probably bog the cards down if they tried.
- I said "smooth performance" - 30 fps is smooth for Oblivion; this isn't Counter-strike, folks; you aren't going to instantly die should your framerate drop to 59 for one second. I was careful to choose my words, and not say, "60fps."
Also, given that different mods will change the performance strain at DIFFERENT AREAS, it should be possible to combine some and some added on ones would NOT actually increase the load noticably.
Yeah, I think you'd be able to get smooth performance with a GTX 280, even with QTP3 and MAEVWD, and a slew of other goodies, at resolutions of AT LEAST up to 1600x1200, x4 AA x16 AF, if not higher. Of course, this presumes the CPU is willing; it's not the video card's fault if you place the bottleneck on a different part.