SLI vs. CrossFire, Part 2 – High-end multi-GPU scaling
Test Configuration
Test Configuration – Hardware
- Intel Core i7 920-reference 2.66 GHz and overclocked to 3.8 GHz; 21x multiplier for 3.97 GHz, Turbo is on.
- Gigabyte EX58-UD3R (Intel X58 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 2.0 specification; CrossFire/SLI 16x+16x).
- 6 GB OCZ DDR3 PC1800 Kingston RAM (3×2 GB, tri-channel at PC1600 speeds; 2×2 GB supplied by Kingston)
- GeForce GTX 590, 3GB reference clocks (607/1707 MHz) supplied by Nvidia.
- GeForce GTX 580, 1.5 GB reference design and clocks (772/1544 MHz), supplied by Nvidia
- GeForce GTX 580, 1.5 GB reference design and clocks (772/1544 MHz), supplied by Nvidia
- ATI Radeon HD 6990 (2GB, reference clocks, 830/1200 MHz) supplied by AMD
- ATI Radeon HD 6970 (2GB, reference clocks, 880/1370 MHz) supplied by AMD
- ATI Radeon HD 6950 (2GB, flashed to stock HD 6970; 880/1370 MHz) supplied by AMD
- Two identical 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 hard drives configured and set up identically from drive image; one partition for Nvidia GeForce drivers and one for ATI Catalyst drivers
- 2 x Thermaltake ToughPower 775 W power supply units supplied by Thermaltake
- Thermaltake Element G Case supplied by Thermaltake
- Noctua NH-U12P SE2 CPU cooler, supplied by Noctua
- Philips DVD SATA writer
- HP LP3065 2560×1600 thirty inch LCD; 3 x ASUS 23″ 1920×1080 120Hz displays supplied by Nvidia/ASUS.
Test Configuration – Software
- ATi Catalyst 11.8 WHQL driver for all Radeons; highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver; surface performance optimizations are off; “use applications settings” are checked
- NVIDIA GeForce WHQL 280.260; High Quality
- Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates
- DirectX July/November 2010
- All games are patched to their latest versions.
- vsync is forced off in the control panel.
- Varying AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied if possible; 16xAF forced in control panel for Crysis.
- All results show average with minimum and maximum frame rates as noted.
- Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
- Windows 7 64, all DX9 titles were run under DX9 render paths, DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths and DX11 titles under DX11 render paths.
The Benchmarks
- Vantage
- 3DMark11
- Batman: Arkham Asylum
- Serious Sam, Second Encounter HD (2010)
- Wolfenstein
- Left 4 Dead
- Mafia II
- Crysis
- World in Conflict
- Far Cry 2
- Just Cause 2
- Resident Evil 5
- Alien vs. Predator
- Battleforge
- STALKER, Call of Pripyat
- F1 2010
- Metro 2033
- Lost Planet 2
- H.A.W.X. 2
- Civilization 5
- Total War: Shogun II
- Dirt 3
- Crysis 2
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution
- Heaven 2
We have got an interesting project going. Let’s check our results.
Thanks for this article. It was a very interesting read
I’m really looking forward to the next parts in the series. Overclocking and potential CPU-bottlenecking in Single-Card VS SLI is something I’ve been wondering about for a long while. And also microstuttering, I’ve never experienced it myself, but it scares me enough to make me cautions of buying another GTX 570 to SLI.
And oh, is it possible to get Battlefield 3 Beta added in your test-games?
Thanks for the feedback. I would not be afraid of getting a second GTX 570 for SLI. Nvidia (and AMD) work to minimize micro stuttering in the drivers and it is something that you can generally further alleviate by backing down on settings if you notice it.
I plan to add BF3 to my regular benching suite after it is released. The beta is only going to be valid for less than a month.
Thank you very much for this! It isn’t easy finding benchmark results with newer drivers. Not for a quad-SLI or quadfire setup that is. Cheers!
Err, strike the quad-SLI and quadfire part, but all the same – it is nice to find more up to date benchmarks!