X-bit labs

Two vs. Three: Zotac GeForce 9800 GX2 Against 3-Way CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 3870 (page 9)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin , Yaroslav Lyssenko

[ 04/04/2008 | 12:18 PM ]

Crysis

This game is tested at the High level of detail except for the Shader option which is set at Very High. Thus we try to hit the balance between image quality and performance.

The CrossFireX system doesn’t scale up much when there are more than two GPUs in it: the software support is still deficient. The Zotac GeForce 9800 GX2 feels all right providing a high average frame rate at resolutions up to 1920x1200 inclusive. The minimum speed is only 10-11fps, though, which means slowdowns and jerkiness.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

The frame rate is fixed at 30fps in this game as this is the rate at which the physical model is being updated at the server. Thus, this 30fps speed is the required minimum for playing the game.

The current implementation of CrossFireX doesn’t support over two GPUs in OpenGL applications. But while a quad-processor system with two Radeon HD 3870 X2 cards is not slower than one such card, the 3-way CrossFire configuration is inferior to one dual-processor card from ATI. You should better disable CrossFireX mode unless you want to have a dangerously low speed even at 1600x1200.

The Zotac GeForce 9800 GX2 has no such problems and delivers superb performance even at 2560x1600. So this graphics card carries on the long-time tradition that Nvidia’s cards suit better for running OpenGL applications.