X-bit labs

There Will Be Speed: The Clash of Modern Multi-GPU Technologies (page 17)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin , Yaroslav Lyssenko, Anton Shilov

[ 03/24/2008 | 05:01 PM ]

Performance in Strategies

Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts

The new add-on to Company of Heroes is tested in DirectX 10 mode only since it provides the highest quality of the visuals.

The new version of ATI Catalyst improves the result of the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 considerably. This card now delivers a twice better minimum speed than the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB at 1280x1024 and provides a high level of comfort. The support of more GPUs is not implemented properly and leads to a reduction of both average and minimum speed.

The GeForce 9800 GX2 has certain problems here. Although its average frame rate is as high as 60fps at 1280x1024, its minimum speed is very low. Such fluctuations of performance coupled with the delayed response to the user’s actions may the game unplayable. This also refers to the GeForce 9800 GX2 Quad SLI system whose minimum speed is below 5fps.

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

The game having a frame rate limiter, you should consider the minimum speed of the cards in the first place.

We can’t see a leader here because every graphics card reaches the frame rate limit.

World in Conflict

The new graphics cards from both companies are not quite good in this test. The Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2 has a lower minimum speed than the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB while the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 is far slower than the ordinary Radeon HD 3870 X2. The 4-way CrossFireX system provides a performance growth, yet it is not big enough for normal play. To cut it short, the most expensive and powerful multi-GPU solutions available today are perfectly useless for this game.