NVIDIA Single Card, Multi-GPU: GeForce 7950 GX2
by Derek Wilson on June 5, 2006 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Battlefield 2 Performance
At the lowest resolution with and without AA, both the highest end ATI card we tested (the X1900 XT) and the NVIDIA 7900 GTX lead the 7950 GX2 in performance. In most other (non CPU limited) cases, we will see the new NVIDIA flagship part come out on top, but this is one case where the added overhead of multi-GPU management gets in the way. Hopefully anyone who has one fo these cards will also own a display that does much higher resolutions than 1280x1024.
Again, at 1600x1200 without AA we see the 7950 GX2 running into a CPU limitation. When 4xAA gets enabled, we see the 7950 GX2 jump to the front of the class. In fact, enabling 4xAA only causes the 7950 GX2 to drop an average of 2.6 frames per second from the non-antialiased benchmark.
Running at our highest resolution, both with and without AA leaves the 7950 GX2 solidly in the performance lead under BF2. It isn't surprising that the closest competitor is the 7900 GT SLI setup, followed by the X1900 XT. At the maximum quality setting, the 7900 GTX falls a stunning 36% (or 19.1 average fps) behind the 7950 GX2. Not every game delivers results this impressive, but BF2 is certainly a good title to perform well under.
At the lowest resolution with and without AA, both the highest end ATI card we tested (the X1900 XT) and the NVIDIA 7900 GTX lead the 7950 GX2 in performance. In most other (non CPU limited) cases, we will see the new NVIDIA flagship part come out on top, but this is one case where the added overhead of multi-GPU management gets in the way. Hopefully anyone who has one fo these cards will also own a display that does much higher resolutions than 1280x1024.
Again, at 1600x1200 without AA we see the 7950 GX2 running into a CPU limitation. When 4xAA gets enabled, we see the 7950 GX2 jump to the front of the class. In fact, enabling 4xAA only causes the 7950 GX2 to drop an average of 2.6 frames per second from the non-antialiased benchmark.
Running at our highest resolution, both with and without AA leaves the 7950 GX2 solidly in the performance lead under BF2. It isn't surprising that the closest competitor is the 7900 GT SLI setup, followed by the X1900 XT. At the maximum quality setting, the 7900 GTX falls a stunning 36% (or 19.1 average fps) behind the 7950 GX2. Not every game delivers results this impressive, but BF2 is certainly a good title to perform well under.
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JarredWalton - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
Yes, SLI profiles are used for full utilization of the GX2 card. (AFAIK - Derek can correct me if I'm wrong.)DerekWilson - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
SLI profiles are used if availalbe, but SLI profiles are never required to enable multi-GPU support on NVIDIA hardware.there are some advanced options for enabling multi-GPU or single-GPU rendering in the control panel -- even down to the AFR or SFR mode type (and SLIAA modes as a fallback if nothing else will work for you).
in short -- required: no, used: yes.
araczynski - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
haven't read the article yet as I didn't see reference to Oblivion benchmarks, and lets be honest, that's the only game out these days that's worth benchmarking (in terms of actually giving the high end cards an actual workout).DigitalFreak - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
It's amazing all the cool stuff you can do with PCI Express.Sniderhouse - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
The Voodoo5 5500 had two GPUs on a single card which did true SLI, not to mention the Voodoo5 6000 which had four GPUs, but never really made it to market.
shabby - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
The x24 was also a dual pcb video card, thats what he meant. Not dual chip or whatever.timmiser - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
Exactly what I was thinking!DerekWilson - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
Perhaps I should have said successful products ... or products that were availble in any real quantity :-)photoguy99 - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
From page 1, what limitations are being referred to?Ryan Smith - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
DX9 itself has a good deal of overhead in some situations, something Microsoft is changing for DX10. We'll have more on that in our upcomming Vista article later this week.