F.E.A.R.2: Project Origin

The GeForce GTX 285 3-way SLI and Radeon HD 4870 X2 4-way CrossFireX are in the lead among the premium-class solutions. The Radeon HD 4890 3-way CrossFireX is somewhat slower but remains our favorite in the heavyweight category due to its quieter operation. The discrete dual-processor Radeon HD 4890 CrossFireX and GeForce GTX 285 SLI platforms go neck and neck, so we don’t see a clear winner in this segment. The GeForce GTX 295 expectedly wins among the integrated dual-chip cards.

Anyway, the ordinary single-processor GeForce GTX 285 is going to be the best choice for playing the game at 2560x1600 without such problems as incompatibility or much noise. This card is quieter and more economical even in comparison with the GeForce GTX 295, let alone the more advanced solutions. And it does not depend on the software support for multi-GPU configurations.

Left 4 Dead

The game runs on the Source engine and has an integrated benchmark, but the latter does not report the bottom speed information.

The multi-GPU platforms are redundant for Left 4 Dead. A single Radeon HD 4890 is quite enough for playing the game comfortably at 2560x1600 with maximum graphics quality settings together with 4x FSAA. You can try using more resource-consuming antialiasing modes, but the resulting image quality improvements are often so negligible that you have to look for them specifically. Gazing at fences to see any difference in image quality may be dangerous during actual gaming.

Still, we can note that the Radeon HD 4870 X2 4-way CrossFireX subsystem is ahead of the GeForce GTX 285 3-way SLI here. The GeForce GTX 295 is the best choice among the single dual-processor cards, so ATI’s supporters have to wait for any products like Radeon HD 4890 X2. We hope such graphics cards will come out soon and be equipped with a better cooler than the Radeon HD 4870 X2.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky

To achieve a playable speed in this game we disabled FSAA and such resource-consuming options as Sun rays, Wet surfaces and Volumetric Smoke. We use the Enhanced full dynamic lighting (DX10) mode for our test and additionally enable the DirectX 10.1 mode for the ATI cards.

Notwithstanding the considerably relaxed settings, not all of the tested solutions can cope with the game at high resolutions. Both single-processor cards are limited to 1680x1050 only.

Multi-GPU solutions are usually bought to play at the highest resolutions, but it is hard to see which is better among them here. Each of the three subsystems with two and more GPUs delivers the same speed, but the Radeon HD 4890 3-way CrossFireX is preferable in terms of noisiness. Moreover, the latter boasts the best result at 2560x1600, even though the gap from its opponents is very small.