1680x1050 is the native resolution of the countless hordes of 20" and 22" widescreen LCD monitors that have flooded the marketplace, as well as gamers' desks, in the past two years. Mathematically, it is very similar to 1600x1200 with respect to the sheer number of pixels on the display, and the amount of work required by the gaming system to drive it.

HardOCP's F.E.A.R. 2 Gameplay Performance and IQ article puts seven of today's most popular video cards to the test. Which card was the fastest? Which offered the most bang for the buck? Here' a taster:

At 2560x1600, the AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2 took a commanding lead, allowing us to use 12X CFAA. It was followed closely by the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285, which allowed us to use 8X CSAA, and then the GeForce GTX 280, which permitted 4X MSAA. Interestingly, the GeForce GTX 260 nearly matched the GTX 280 in performance, also allowing us to use 4X MSAA at 2560x1600. Both the 512MB version and the 1GB version of the AMD Radeon HD 4870 allowed 4X MSAA, while the Radeon HD 4850 had the performance for only up to 2X MSAA at this very high resolution. We truly did not expect a ~$150 video card to give us that level of performance at 2560x1600.

Lowering the resolution to 1920x1200 saw all of those AA settings increase. The AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2, Radeon HD 4870 1GB, and Radeon HD 4870 512MB all enabled us to use the highest level of AA that those video cards support: 24X CFAA, which is 8X MSAA with the "Edge Detect" custom AA filter selected. The GeForce GTX 285 allowed 16xQ CSAA at 1920x1200, while the GTX 280 allowed 8xQ MSAA. Here again, the GeForce GTX 260 met the performance level of the GeForce GTX 280, also allowing 8xQ MSAA with only slightly lower (yet no less playable) framerates. Finally, the AMD Radeon HD 4850 let us use an impressive 12X CFAA at 1920x1200. That is 4X MSAA, with the "Edge Detect" custom AA filter enabled for an effective 12X sample rate.

At 1680x1050, the performance we pulled from these video cards was ridiculous. Every video card in our lineup, all seven of them, allowed us to use the highest possible level of AA that was available to them. For the AMD-based video cards, that was 24X CFAA. For the NVIDIA-based video cards, it was 16xQ CSAA.

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin is clearly a well-optimized game running on a mature, well-optimized game engine. Not only did we see truly outstanding performance, we also experienced no crashes, lockups, or other hiccups common to many brand new games at launch. Of course, that does come at the expense of not really dropping our jaws with amazing visuals a la Crysis or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky. At the end of testing, we were left with the impression that F.E.A.R. 2 was polished to a shine, but that the shiny thing itself was just not that impressive. It is more like a basic issue combat boot than a fine Italian leather wingtip. It is fun, and it can even be pretty, but it isn't going to win any style awards. As graphics people, we do like to see the expensive video cards give us extra eye-candy, but as gamers and consumers in an age of economic strife, we really love that we can get stellar performance on the cheap.

Update: In related news, FiringSquad rounded up 21 different GPUs ranging from the Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB all the way up to the latest GeForce GTX 295, as well as including SLI and CrossFire results:

As you just saw in the benchmarks, Monolith's F.E.A.R. 2 performs quite well with today's and even yesterday's latest hardware. Even with max settings and 8xAA, the GeForce 8800 and Radeon 3870 all ran with very fluid frame rates at 1600x1200, and some may feel quite comfortable with the frame rates we saw from these cards at 1920x1200 as well with those settings.

Thanks to the latest ATI driver release, the game certainly runs faster right now with ATI's latest hardware, with ATI outrunning comparable GeForce cards by double-digit margins. As a result, the 4870 is a closer competitor for the GTX 280 and 285, while the Radeon 4850 and 4830 perform more closely to the GeForce GTX 260 and 9800 GTX+ respectively.