Super High End systems tested. Toms.

[Keysplayr]

Core i7: 4-Way CrossFire, 3-way SLI, Paradise? : Tempered Expectations

They also provide results from the top Penryn Quad Core, and the top Phenom.
Nice comparison they provided.

 

[JPB]

To me, it looks like with the Core i7, the GTX280 kicks some serious ass.

 

[thegimp03]

Wonder why they had such bad benchmarks with Crysis at 2560x1600. Find it hard to believe 3-4 of the ultra high end graphics cards can't even run playable frame rates on that game.

 

[solofly]

Well I'll be running some quad and tri-fire along with a Core i7 965 Extreme pretty soon...

 

[Insomniator]

Could they be running out of video memory? 2560x1600 is almost 2x the amount of pixels as 1900x1200, not to mention it being Crysis.

Hell thats gotta be one of the most demanding applications you can run on these systems, I'm sure everything is choked up.

edit

also if every game scaled with SLI as well as farcry 2 does, we'd all have SLI setups

damnnn

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: JPB
To me, it looks like with the Core i7, the GTX280 kicks some serious ass.

This is a strange review.

The graphs aren't labelled right IMO- I'm assuming the "1XHD4870" is the 512 card and the 2X and 4X are X2s.

They put a lot of smack down on multi card in the review as well.

 

[james1701]

I would have also like to have seen 4850x2 x2 mixed in with that bunch.

 

[vj8usa]

Originally posted by: nRollo
The graphs aren't labelled right IMO- I'm assuming the "1XHD4870" is the 512 card and the 2X and 4X are X2s.

Yeah, the single 4870 is a 512MB card, which is misleading since the 2/4x setups have 1GB per 4870 GPU. It's interesting to see how 1GB VRAM isn't enough at 2560x1600 in Crysis on the GTX280s, but it is enough on the 4870s. Why does the 4870 use less framebuffer than the GTX280?

Also, oddly enough, their analysis of the results never mentions how the 4870s are the better performers at 25x16 in Crysis (by a fairly wide margin).

 

[Tempered81]

sweet review, thanks!

edit: looks like on the summary page, ATi Crossfire does better on X48 than X58, and Nvidia SLI does WAY better on X58 than 790i Ultra.

Single cards gtx280/4870 both do better on qx9770 than i7965. i7 takes the cake with 2, 3-way sli.

 

[btdvox]

LOL this is a joke of a review,
Obviously something is wrong with most of there benches, like Crysis 2560X1600 at very high they get 4 fps with 3 GTX 280's ? On my system with QX9650 @ 4.2 ghz and 3 gtx 280's I get a 30 frame avg in game, on the benchmark i get 32.74....

They obv have driver issues....

On top of that where is the CPU Overclocking? at stock these thigns are being choked like mad... at least penryn side they are...

these chips should be running 4.0 GHZ+

heres an example of what one GTX 280 is doing...
http://www.vr-zone.com/article...0-gtx-280/5935-11.html

with a qx9650 @ 4.0 ghz.

 

[vj8usa]

Originally posted by: btdvox
On my system with QX9650 @ 4.2 ghz and 3 gtx 280's I get a 30 frame avg in game, on the benchmark i get 32.74....

Is that with the same settings they used?

 

[btdvox]

^^ updated info on my original post,
They were using stock settings for the CPU and FSB... You cant really benchmark multi gpus while running your CPU at 3.2 ghz (why would you even buy a extreme proc?)
My scores are with my QX9650 at 4.2 ghz , at 2560X1600 , on the one out of many other articles (VR zone maybe even not as good as the others and not as reliable)
you can see with just one GTX 280 they get 12.5 avg with just ONE gtx 280, while the rest is about half of that, (even 2 way CF with 4870s')

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: btdvox
^^ updated info on my original post,
They were using stock settings for the CPU and FSB... You cant really benchmark multi gpus while running your CPU at 3.2 ghz (why would you even buy a extreme proc?)
My scores are with my QX9650 at 4.2 ghz , at 2560X1600 , on the one out of many other articles (VR zone maybe even not as good as the others and not as reliable)
you can see with just one GTX 280 they get 12.5 avg with just ONE gtx 280, while the rest is about half of that, (even 2 way CF with 4870s')

^bold

Not everyone overclocks. Some want the best they can buy without the hassle. Install it, and don't bother with it anymore. That's why. And please don't mention money here. These systems with i7's and 3 to 4 GPU's will be prohibitively expensive. For those people who can easily afford these systems, an Extreme CPU is not a strange idea to include in the purchase.

 

[vj8usa]

Originally posted by: btdvox
heres an example of what one GTX 280 is doing...
http://www.vr-zone.com/article...0-gtx-280/5935-11.html

with a qx9650 @ 4.0 ghz.

Uh, that's pretty much the same result that the OP's article had. Not sure what you're getting at.

 

[Tempered81]

Yah the single gtx280 at 4.5fps is for 8XAA 2560 crysis VH @ toms. Toms has 12.5fps with NoAA, just like Vr-zone review.

BTW, how does 2560 x 1600 Very High 64 bit Crysis DX10 8XAA look? I'm sure it's amazing.

 

[btdvox]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
Yah the single gtx280 at 4.5fps is for 8XAA 2560 crysis VH @ toms. Toms has 12.5fps with NoAA, just like Vr-zone review.

BTW, how does 2560 x 1600 Very High 64 bit Crysis DX10 8XAA look? I'm sure it's amazing.

Yes.. but 3 GTX 280's are with NO AA are getting 12.88?

All Im simply stating is its not a fair review for any of the benches because there being CPU bound after one GPU.

If you notice Crysis is getting 12 FPS for a single, dual or tri sli. Something is definitely wrong with that.

Also sorry I wasnt trying to mention price at all, that being stated, people do alot of things, I was mentioning that if your going to buy a Extreme CPU, the main reason is to overclock it for the unlocked multi. Wasn't trying to attack anyone....

But the Tom's review (the one that the OP posted) is running there Proc at stock.
and my sentiment is simply that running the proc at stock and having 3 gpu's is leading to the system being CPU bound...

Also im not trying to flame ATI cards as there getting worse marks then other review sites also on Tom's site, but Crysis and Crysis Warhead is a Nvidia based game and has always been scored higher in Crysis which other reviews show easily also.

Guru3D has a nice gpu comparision too.

The other thing I guess, is if you take Overclocking out of the situation completely then things get oblique and its really not a fair representative as the Penryn chips can easily clock 4 GHZ+ I'm not too positive on what I7 can do but it definitely didnt seem to clock that much higher comparingly from reviewers.
I see QX9770's clocking 4.4-4.7 on air and water, Assuming these guys are "extreme" they usually will overclock. In which the Penryn XE's would have a much different position to play.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Originally posted by: btdvox

Originally posted by: jaredpace
Yah the single gtx280 at 4.5fps is for 8XAA 2560 crysis VH @ toms. Toms has 12.5fps with NoAA, just like Vr-zone review.

BTW, how does 2560 x 1600 Very High 64 bit Crysis DX10 8XAA look? I'm sure it's amazing.

Yes.. but 3 GTX 280's are with NO AA are getting 12.88?

All Im simply stating is its not a fair review for any of the benches because there being CPU bound after one GPU.

If you notice Crysis is getting 12 FPS for a single, dual or tri sli. Something is definitely wrong with that.

Also sorry I wasnt trying to mention price at all, that being stated, people do alot of things, I was mentioning that if your going to buy a Extreme CPU, the main reason is to overclock it for the unlocked multi. Wasn't trying to attack anyone....

But the Tom's review (the one that the OP posted) is running there Proc at stock.
and my sentiment is simply that running the proc at stock and having 3 gpu's is leading to the system being CPU bound...

Also im not trying to flame ATI cards as there getting worse marks then other review sites also on Tom's site, but Crysis and Crysis Warhead is a Nvidia based game and has always been scored higher in Crysis which other reviews show easily also.

Guru3D has a nice gpu comparision too.

The other thing I guess, is if you take Overclocking out of the situation completely then things get oblique and its really not a fair representative as the Penryn chips can easily clock 4 GHZ+ I'm not too positive on what I7 can do but it definitely didnt seem to clock that much higher comparingly from reviewers.
I see QX9770's clocking 4.4-4.7 on air and water, Assuming these guys are "extreme" they usually will overclock. In which the Penryn XE's would have a much different position to play.

You can't throw out these tests based on what you are saying here. The i7 965 and QX9770 are clocked at the same frequency, so the tests are meant to give the reader an idea of what these two processor can do clock-for-clock (and they happen to be the fastest quad cores Intel offers). Overclocking means nothing for these tests.

[Edit: If overclocking was to mean something, then someone could rationalize that it would be best spending $300 on the i7 920 and overclocking it to 3.2 GHz or beyond and have performance that rivals these $1000 chips.]

The tests aren't that far off, IMO. Just compare the Crysis Warhead results:
http://www.tomshardware.com/re...-i7-gaming,2061-8.html
and
http://www.guru3d.com/article/...-performance-review/15
2x GTX280 w/i7 965 @ 25x16, Guru3D: 17 fps
2x GTX280 w/i7 965 @ 25x15, Tomshw: 20.65
3x GTX280 w/i7 965 @ 25x16, Guru3D: 14 fps
3x GTX280 w/i7 965 @ 25x15, Tomshw: 22.6

And I believe Tom's was also using hiqher quality settings for their tests. Their first Crysis benchmarks might be off, but by looking at the vr-zone link you gave us it's evident that both vr-zone and tomshardware are getting the same results for a single GTX280 at 25x16 resolution under the highest in-game quality settings.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: btdvox
^^ updated info on my original post,
They were using stock settings for the CPU and FSB... You cant really benchmark multi gpus while running your CPU at 3.2 ghz [/URL]

AT disagrees, as do I.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3183&p=4

We feel kind of silly even entertaining this question, but yes, if you want to build a system with three 8800 Ultras, you don't need to spend $1000 on a CPU. You can get by with a 2.66GHz chip just fine.

Also:
88fps with 9650 at 3GHz, 91fps at 3.6GHz in COH

259 vs 262fps at DMC4 with that 600MHz OC

133 vs 140fps at ET:QW

78 vs 83fps

132 vs 139fps at UT3

Clearly having a 3.6GHz QX9650 isn't making any noticeable improvements with a 4870X2 over a stock 3GHz QX9650, why would 4GHz?

Originally posted by: btdvox
(why would you even buy a extreme proc?)

I've been running my GTX280 SLi with my QX9650 at 3.33GHz, with nice watercooling no less. Just upped the multiplier to 10. System stability and part longevity mean more to me than a couple fps I won't notice anyway- you get the real improvements with better graphics, not more CPU MHz. Anyone with a 3GHz Intel Core based chip should be fine. (even a higher end Phenom works pretty well- have no issues with my 9850)


Anyway- don't want to argue, just think the "You've got to have a 4GHz processor for MultiGPU" is largely a myth. I'll crank it up to 4 when I need to, no reason to now.

 

[btdvox]

^^ thanks for the links, yeah it is kind of funny, i remember those links, but truth be told, all these tests are showing that Multi GPU's are CPU bound, in fact I can state that too because running my QX9650 at stock comparing to 4.2 yields a huge 20 FPS drop at 1920X1200 on crysis war head... at very high no aa/no af.

this is even more so at 2560X1600. I guess what I am asking is too much to ask, because there arent many gamers with 2560X1600 displays and 3 gtx 280's but I just think if your at that position , overclocking is almost a necessity to run games properly and to make cpu not the choke on a system. It's clear that CPU is choking the 3 way sli on the system, I just dont get why theres a huge gap from a qx9770 to a i7 xe on 3 way... it's obvious that it is cpu bound.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: btdvox
^^ thanks for the links, yeah it is kind of funny, i remember those links, but truth be told, all these tests are showing that Multi GPU's are CPU bound, in fact I can state that too because running my QX9650 at stock comparing to 4.2 yields a huge 20 FPS drop at 1920X1200 on crysis war head... at very high no aa/no af.

this is even more so at 2560X1600. I guess what I am asking is too much to ask, because there arent many gamers with 2560X1600 displays and 3 gtx 280's but I just think if your at that position , overclocking is almost a necessity to run games properly and to make cpu not the choke on a system. It's clear that CPU is choking the 3 way sli on the system, I just dont get why theres a huge gap from a qx9770 to a i7 xe on 3 way... it's obvious that it is cpu bound.

I game at 25X16. (3007WFP-HC) I don't have 3 GTX280s, but still think in games that aren't Crysis or RTSs a person is GPU limited at 25X16 not CPU limited more often than not.