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ASUS Extreme N7800GT/2DHTV in SLI: Two Is Better Than One (page 10)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin

[ 11/04/2005 | 10:34 AM ]

Far Cry

Although NVIDIA’s SLI is a mature technology already, some compatibility problems still crop up from time to time. In this case two Extreme N7800GT graphics cards working together in the multi-GPU mode have a lower speed than the single cards. This is not crucial for Far Cry , however, because all high-end graphics cards reach the speed ceiling set by the system’s central processor at the “pure speed” settings. The picture is more diverse in the “eye candy” mode: the ASUS Extreme N7800GT is a little slower than the RADEON X1800 XL starting from 1280x1024 resolution. When overclocked, the ASUS card is ahead of the GeForce 7800 GTX. The SLI configuration built out of two ASUS Extreme N7800GT cards is on top, but the gap between it and the RADEON X1800 XT is very small despite the twofold difference in the number of pixel processors.

The ASUS Extreme N7800GT looks much better in this demo because the G70 graphics processor executes the 3.0 pixel shader code from Far Cry more effectively than the ATI R520 does. That’s why the ASUS is has a higher “pure speed” than the RADEON X1800 XL and is at least no worse than it in the “eye candy” mode. The ASUS Extreme N7800GT SLI system has no rivals and delivers more than 100fps even in the hardest operational mode.