Crossfire vs. SLI performance comparison.

[Keysplayr]

www.overclockersclub.com review

 

[OCGuy]

"So what did we learn from this little exercise? I learned that SLI is the more mature multi-GPU solution currently. In each of the three classes, the Nvidia technology and their video cards lost no more than four times out of 40 tests, with all things being equal - this being in the quad GPU class."


Good article...:thumbsup:

 

[happy medium]

I was under the impression that crossfire was scaling better then sli?
That review tells a different story.

 

[Creig]

It's odd how they come to the opposite conclusion of X-bit's findings when they tested 4890 Crossfire vs GTX 285 SLI. Their review was quite extensive as well.

Ultimate Heavy-Weight Fight: Radeon HD 4890 CrossFireX vs. GeForce GTX 285 SLI

Anyway, the Radeon HD 4890 CrossFire has proved to be a worthy opponent to the GeForce GTX 285 SLI configuration. The latter is generally faster at low resolutions, but ATI?s configuration secures a draw at 1920x1200 and higher resolutions. Therefore, we can expect it to be faster than the GeForce GTX 285 SLI tandem from the same price category. We will check this out practically in an upcoming review.

The reviews lately have been quite contradictory, be it GTX 275, GTX 285, HD 4890, SLI or Crossfire. It could be the platform used, the choice of CPUs, drivers, OS... Who knows. I think we need to nail down what is causing these reviews to be all over the board.

 

[happy medium]

Originally posted by: Creig
It's odd how they come to the opposite conclusion of X-bit's findings when they tested 4890 Crossfire vs GTX 285 SLI. Their review was quite extensive as well.

Ultimate Heavy-Weight Fight: Radeon HD 4890 CrossFireX vs. GeForce GTX 285 SLI

Anyway, the Radeon HD 4890 CrossFire has proved to be a worthy opponent to the GeForce GTX 285 SLI configuration. The latter is generally faster at low resolutions, but ATI?s configuration secures a draw at 1920x1200 and higher resolutions. Therefore, we can expect it to be faster than the GeForce GTX 285 SLI tandem from the same price category. We will check this out practically in an upcoming review.

The reviews lately have been quite contradictory, be it GTX 275, GTX 285, HD 4890, SLI or Crossfire. It could be the platform used, the choice of CPUs, drivers, OS... Who knows. I think we need to nail down what is causing these reviews to be all over the board.

I think the xbit benchies use lots of aa/af and the overclockers club just says max settings. And the xbit article uses a core i7 @ 3.2 not 3.8 like the overclockers article. Could be the difference?

 

[dguy6789]

I think it's safe to say with so many "contradictory" reviews that both solutions perform so close to one another that differences are within margin of error.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

That's one way to look at it: The other is that, if the AA/AF thing is true, one card just handles something better than the other. It's really no different than one card performing better than the other in one game, and then losing in another game. They just offer different strengths and weaknesses and it can only be valued on a case-by-case (game-by-game) basis. But on the average, I agree with you dguy6789: They are pretty close.

 

[lopri]

I learned that SLI is the more mature multi-GPU solution currently. (emphasis mine)

Perhaps. The problem I see is, though, it has been maturing for the past 6 years and it will still be maturing for the next.. oh I don't know. Let me know when it is mature. (This applies to both CF and SLI)


I can't say much about that review but I find it hard to believe that 4890 CF is losing out to 260 SLI in Fallout 3. That is the game I'm playing these days and the difference between a 4890 and a 280 is quite noticeable. (i.e. 4890>280) So unless ATI has totally messed up the CF scaling I call that specific game result B.S.

 

[aka1nas]

IME, Nvidia solutions have usually more CPU hungry than AMD/ATIs, even before multi-GPU was on the table. It's not surprising that you need an extremely fast CPU to eek all the performance out of a high-end SLI setup. Guru3d did an I7 review recently that was showing 50%+ gains with Tri-SLI when switching from a C2Q to an I7.

 

[Hauk]

Does ATI have an on screen CF scaling indicator yet? One thing I've always enjoyed about SLI is the scaling indicator. I check every game with indicator. Lately, most games show very smooth scaling with very few hickups.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: OCguy
"So what did we learn from this little exercise? I learned that SLI is the more mature multi-GPU solution currently. In each of the three classes, the Nvidia technology and their video cards lost no more than four times out of 40 tests, with all things being equal - this being in the quad GPU class."


Good article...:thumbsup:

If I remember right you didn't like that site as much when it showed a lowly stock clocked Phenom 9600 as good to a better gaming CPU than the Intel quads in real world resolutions. Seriously, is that a good site or not? If we do believe the results they publish than I suggest you dump that C2D and upgrade to a Phenom.

Unless I'm missing something it looks like they both use 2-4xAA for the majority of their games. Both look to be using an i7 965 as well (though OCC overclocks to 3.9GHz vs. 3.2GHz). Both use Vista 64 SP1. Seems like some differences in results (L4D shows 168FPS for OCC vs. 123.7FPS for Xbit @ 1920/4xAA. That's a pretty big performance gap for a 700MHz difference in CPU I would think) <shrug>

OCC doesn't test single cards in their review, so it's hard to see scaling (unless I missed it somewhere).

What I really take from both reviews is that right now 2 cards from a 4870 on up are more than fast enough for just about anything right now.

 

[Tempered81]

I dont like this article.

Just like i think derek favors ATI, overclockersclub & hardocp's editors favor Nvidia.

my favorite part:

the GTX 285 combo will cost you almost $700 - at a cozy $680 - while the HD 4890 combo only goes for $530, with prices scaling downward based on the video card's capabilities. That being said, the best value per frame per second delivered is the GTX 260 SLI combination

HD4890 crossfire slaughters GTX260 sli, and I wonder if they know it can be purchased for $360 and it clocks to 1 ghz. $360 is about the price of a single gtx285.

Horrible article.

 

[wrangler]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
I dont like this article.

Just like i think derek favors ATI, overclockersclub & hardocp's editors favor Nvidia.

my favorite part:

the GTX 285 combo will cost you almost $700 - at a cozy $680 - while the HD 4890 combo only goes for $530, with prices scaling downward based on the video card's capabilities. That being said, the best value per frame per second delivered is the GTX 260 SLI combination

HD4890 crossfire slaughters GTX260 sli, and I wonder if they know it can be purchased for $360 and it clocks to 1 ghz. $360 is about the price of a single gtx285.

Horrible article.

I agree. The numbers skew WAY too much to fall within the margin of error. The xbitlabs numbers at least jive with whats here on AT and even though you think HardOCP is with nVidia, the numbers there are closer to the xbitlabs article as well. The OverClockersClub numbers are out there. The key for me was showing 260's beating 4890's in Fallout 3. Not gonna happen. The Clear Sky numbers are very suspect as well.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

Originally posted by: OCguy
"So what did we learn from this little exercise? I learned that SLI is the more mature multi-GPU solution currently. In each of the three classes, the Nvidia technology and their video cards lost no more than four times out of 40 tests, with all things being equal - this being in the quad GPU class."


Woot another site I can add to my bookmarks so I can post in AT every time I need to cherry pick reviews to make Nv look good :thumbsup:

Translated for true intentions LOL

But I dont really have anything agaisnt the review, its fine if the reviewer found Nv to be the best setup, just like Xbit found ATI to be superior, what I cant stand is people that use double standards every chance they get

 

[Hauk]

Now that I've taken time to half ass read the article, I find it delivers nothing more than any other head to head benchmark review. I thought we were talking about which platform scales better (on average). :thumbsdown:

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: ShadowOfMyself

Originally posted by: OCguy
"So what did we learn from this little exercise? I learned that SLI is the more mature multi-GPU solution currently. In each of the three classes, the Nvidia technology and their video cards lost no more than four times out of 40 tests, with all things being equal - this being in the quad GPU class."


Woot another site I can add to my bookmarks so I can post in AT every time I need to cherry pick reviews to make Nv look good :thumbsup:

Translated for true intentions LOL

But I dont really have anything agaisnt the review, its fine if the reviewer found Nv to be the best setup, just like Xbit found ATI to be superior, what I cant stand is people that use double standards every chance they get

Ya mean, kinda sorta like you did with the Xbit review?
If ya can't take it, don't dish it out.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
I dont like this article.

Just like i think derek favors ATI, overclockersclub & hardocp's editors favor Nvidia.

my favorite part:

the GTX 285 combo will cost you almost $700 - at a cozy $680 - while the HD 4890 combo only goes for $530, with prices scaling downward based on the video card's capabilities. That being said, the best value per frame per second delivered is the GTX 260 SLI combination

HD4890 crossfire slaughters GTX260 sli, and I wonder if they know it can be purchased for $360 and it clocks to 1 ghz. $360 is about the price of a single gtx285.

Horrible article.

That's awesome. Where can we pick up a couple of 4890's for 180 a pop? Nice price.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Hauk
Now that I've taken time to half ass read the article, I find it delivers nothing more than any other head to head benchmark review. I thought we were talking about which platform scales better (on average). :thumbsdown:

What gave you that idea? I think they were just out for the top performers. Scaling seems to vary as well from game to game. That's normal though.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: wrangler

Originally posted by: jaredpace
I dont like this article.

Just like i think derek favors ATI, overclockersclub & hardocp's editors favor Nvidia.

my favorite part:

the GTX 285 combo will cost you almost $700 - at a cozy $680 - while the HD 4890 combo only goes for $530, with prices scaling downward based on the video card's capabilities. That being said, the best value per frame per second delivered is the GTX 260 SLI combination

HD4890 crossfire slaughters GTX260 sli, and I wonder if they know it can be purchased for $360 and it clocks to 1 ghz. $360 is about the price of a single gtx285.

Horrible article.

I agree. The numbers skew WAY too much to fall within the margin of error. The xbitlabs numbers at least jive with whats here on AT and even though you think HardOCP is with nVidia, the numbers there are closer to the xbitlabs article as well. The OverClockersClub numbers are out there. The key for me was showing 260's beating 4890's in Fallout 3. Not gonna happen. The Clear Sky numbers are very suspect as well.

Based on Anand's scaling results on FO3, it looks like GTX 260 SLI scaled much better on the 4870 in Crossfire, so the results aren't completely unreasonable. Especially considering they are all within a few frames of each other in each case, anyway. I'd imagine that you could contrive a benchmark that would show either card in a favorable light for FO3, though. Performance is too variable (and not easily repeatable always).

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr

Originally posted by: jaredpace
I dont like this article.

Just like i think derek favors ATI, overclockersclub & hardocp's editors favor Nvidia.

my favorite part:

the GTX 285 combo will cost you almost $700 - at a cozy $680 - while the HD 4890 combo only goes for $530, with prices scaling downward based on the video card's capabilities. That being said, the best value per frame per second delivered is the GTX 260 SLI combination

HD4890 crossfire slaughters GTX260 sli, and I wonder if they know it can be purchased for $360 and it clocks to 1 ghz. $360 is about the price of a single gtx285.

Horrible article.

That's awesome. Where can we pick up a couple of 4890's for 180 a pop? Nice price.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2293769&enterthread=y

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: jaredpace

Originally posted by: Keysplayr

Originally posted by: jaredpace
I dont like this article.

Just like i think derek favors ATI, overclockersclub & hardocp's editors favor Nvidia.

my favorite part:

the GTX 285 combo will cost you almost $700 - at a cozy $680 - while the HD 4890 combo only goes for $530, with prices scaling downward based on the video card's capabilities. That being said, the best value per frame per second delivered is the GTX 260 SLI combination

HD4890 crossfire slaughters GTX260 sli, and I wonder if they know it can be purchased for $360 and it clocks to 1 ghz. $360 is about the price of a single gtx285.

Horrible article.

That's awesome. Where can we pick up a couple of 4890's for 180 a pop? Nice price.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2293769&enterthread=y

Nice!! At least you don't have to jump through many hoops! But, if your rebate actually does come, that is a great deal for certain. MSI though.. meh. Rebate offer expires on April 30th, so only two days left. Hopefully, they'll renew the rebate.

 

[Keysplayr]

Nite all. Bed time!!

 

[BenSkywalker]

OC used 185s and a considerably higher clocked CPU, XBit used 182s. The 185s if you look around at different sites showed decent improvements at 25x16 across the board for nV parts, given that covers half the tests in this review I wouldn't marginalize the impact of it too much.

As far as the conclusion goes, the parts would have ended up looking a lot closer if you were to remove Cryostasis and Mirror's Edge, PhysX has a huge impact on those games obviously. They also would have looked a lot different if you were to use a stock clocked processor.

So unless ATI has totally messed up the CF scaling I call that specific game result B.S.

They are all pretty much CPU limitited in that test, it would appear that nV has slightly less driver overhead in that game. The GTX285 in SLI is slightly faster then 285s in quad SLI- that indicates to me driver overhead.

 

[SickBeast]

Do any of you with these high-end SLI/CF rigs actually pay for electricity, or do you rent or live in your mom's basement?

These setups probably cost in excess of $30/month if you leave them running a fair bit, perhaps even more if you overclock. :Q

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr
MSI though.. meh.

Actually I'm pretty sure MSI has the 2nd lowest failure rate after Asus.

Why don't you like them?