iBUYPOWER: 4.0GHz QX9650 and 3-way SLI 8800 Ultras
by Matt Campbell on April 10, 2008 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Gaming/3D Performance
We tested the following applications with both a single 8800 Ultra and 8800 Ultra 3-way SLI configuration.
3DMark 2006
As usual, we warm things up with the classic synthetic 3D benchmark, run with default demo options only.
Two additional 8800 Ultras provide the leap past 21,000 3DMarks. The single Ultra configuration alone is solidly ahead of the Ion.
Crysis
Crysis is punishing to even the most recent PC hardware. This demo also has two built-in benchmarks in the "bin32" folder, one "CPU" and the other "GPU". We ran several configurations to show the scalability of this game. We ran all benchmarks three times, discarding the first result and averaging the other two. We ran all tests at "High" quality unless otherwise specified. Per Derek's recent findings, Crysis benchmarks are run with VSync at default settings (i.e. not forced off in the driver).
The CPU benchmark clearly shows we've got something more powerful under the hood than with the Shuttle, but once we venture up to higher resolutions with the GPU benchmark, we see it makes little difference (with a single 8800 Ultra, anyway). At 1680x1050, there is a mere 2 FPS separating a Q6700/8800GT from a 4.0GHz QX9650/8800 Ultra. Crysis has a seemingly endless thirst for GPU power. Let's see what kind of difference triple-SLI will make.
At 1680x1050, with 4xAA enabled, 3-way SLI provides a comfortably playable 46 FPS average (or it should - see the "Problems" section). Stepping down to 2xAA only buys another 2 FPS; this is a good indicator that the system is no longer GPU limited.
World in Conflict
World in Conflict is a strategy game where the Cold War has erupted into a full-scale conflict between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The demo has a built-in benchmark under Options: Graphics. Quality settings in the game also modify anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering; however, we controlled these independently while leaving all other settings at the default for that quality.
Jumping from one 8800 Ultra to three buys approximately 6 FPS at 4xAA. Minimum frame rates with a high number of explosions still hover around 23 FPS, however.
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OblivionLord - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
Im still not convinced that Crysis is cpu bound at high res considering the poster only went from 4x to 2x AA. That really isnt a whole lot of decreased eyecandy as opposed to Very High to High to Med. Lets also take into account that tri and quad SLI do not scale as well as 2-Sli. I really wouldn't come to a conclusion that it is CPU bound and I also don't buy the thought that the higher the res, the more physics are involved.bupkus - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
just what I was looking for... a three headed chicken.Yah, I could use that, too.
bill3 - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
Okay not exactly great, but my brother bought an $1100 Q6600/Vista64/8800GT/2GB RAM system from them and it's been superb. Personally it actually seemed to be the same cost as buying from newegg. And the wiring was freaking immaculate. I think it's worth it if you dont want mess with building your own, installing Vista, etc.A couple caveats, if you need more Ram grab it seperate from newegg, they overcharge you for additional RAM, and personally I would either make sure the build contains a good power supply or get one seperatly yourself.
bill3 - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
Oh and one major advantage at these places, is that you can hand pick your own name brand components.Contrast that with say, Dell..
strafejumper - Thursday, April 10, 2008 - link
the reviewer seems peeved that there is no anti-virus on his gaming rig.i understand this. However not everyone uses antivirus. There was a period where windows was particularly vulverable and i was getting viruses by just viewing a jpg or by just going to a website without clicking anything. I tried an antivirus then, and was disapointed.
1. I chose a popular one, norton, and i got a virus anyway. The first thing the virus did was screw norton up royally.
2. I wanted to avoid a virus from slowing down my gaming computer, when i installed norton what was the first thing i noticed? the computer was slower...!?
3. Still found that i was vulnerable to adware, to prevent adware as well i would have to download another app that would slow down my computer even more!
4. The anti-virus was a resource hog. Memory, cpu, even caught it using bandwith to download updates in the middle of my playing a game online! This is the opposite of what i want, i want absolutely nothing running while i am gaming.
For all these reasons im almost always without anti-virus its not for everyone - i just go stick to major websites and most email services such as yahoo automatically scan email attachments. So for a few of us who are careful and are able to spot shady exe's its possible to survive without.
JarredWalton - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
Actually, I think the problem is that there are 50 processes *without* any security suite running. I actually uninstall any security suites as the first step of every laptop/system I review/use, though I'm sure some people like the "freebie" (never mind the nagging that comes 3 months later).strafejumper - Thursday, April 10, 2008 - link
i bought one prebuilt system for my first pc and have been building my own since then.the most important thing for me, and what would make me consider buying prebuilt such as ibuypower, is gettting a tried and tested system that totally works out of the box. So many hardware / driver issues / bios settings issues can potentially come up when you build yourself, even seemingly silly things like picky HDDs that only would work with certain IDE cables and motherboards that shipped with a cd with bad drivers (incompatable with XP sp2) have ruined my builds for long periods while i tested every little thing.
Prebuilt is supposed to avoid all this crap and work out of the box. When anandtech reports bluescreens and hiccups in games i just stop right there, no point in buying a prebuilt if its not very very stable out of the box. Imagine after you fix some of the problems, you get a virus or something and then use the restore cd, you are restoring it to a state where it is unstable...
Maffer - Thursday, April 10, 2008 - link
SP1 does not matter much. It installs all nvidia recommended multigpu-hotfixes which I had already installed. Same crashes remain after installing SP1 if I use any other driver than 174.31 or 174.51 (these also worked before installing SP1). 174.51 is just a bit faster overall than 174.31.chizow - Thursday, April 10, 2008 - link
Did you guys bother to check to see if SP1 was installed? I know part of the review was to see how the machine ran out of the box but even some of the errors on the problems page indicate the OS was not updated. Even if iBuyPower didn't update the OS it probably would've been a good idea to do so since there's no less than half a dozen *CRITICAL* hot fixes for that system related to 4GB, Vista, video driver TDRs, SLI, virtual memory allocation etc.Maffer - Thursday, April 10, 2008 - link
Yes, these systems are for 2560x1600 resolution. I run 780i system with watercooled GTX SLI-setup to play with 30" screen. So far I found 174.51 *leaked* beta drivers to be the best solution for games (DX9 & DX10 SLI works without any crashes). "Minor" problem is that SLI must be disabled to play video in fullscreen mode or the system will freeze immediately. Problems vary with different systems though, these are just examples.