Games
The first game benchmark test offers some strange results. With no AA and no AF, the Mach V and its four GPUs posts disappointing results for Prey compared to the Deluge L3’s 3-way SLI system – except at the lowest test resolution, where the Mach V easily beats the Deluge L3. However, that’s not much of a consolation. With AA and AF enabled, the results get worse for the Quad SLI system as the Mach V’s scores pale in comparison to the Deluge L3.
The Quake benchmark tests delivered similar results to Prey’s tests. The Deluge L3, with one less GPU than the Mach V, wins every trial in both series of tests. But the findings also show that while the Mach V keeps the scores close at the lowest resolutions, the gap between it and the Deluge L3 grows considerably as the display resolutions increase.
The Serious Sam 2 tests provide better news for the Mach V, but the results are still disappointing. While the Mach V posts higher scores in most of the resolutions, the margin of victory is extremely thin and doesn’t offer much of a performance upgrade over the Deluge L3’s 3-way SLI configuration.
As we saw with Serious Sam 2, the Mach V pulls out slightly better scores with Supreme Commander but not all that much better than what the Deluge L3 delivers. All in all, the results are still disappointing for Quad SLI, which struggles to separate itself from the three 8800 Ultras.
The final game test produces shows more unflattering results for the Mach V’s Quad SLI configuration. The Deluge L3 comes out on top once again, giving the distinct impression that two 9800 GX cards will give users little to no performance upgrade over 3-way SLI with many games.
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Why not a test a game that isn't limited by CPU...like Cryshit
Care to actually explain why the FNW system got such low CPU utilisation on HD playback?
It would be nice to see the HD resolutions listed regularly (1920 x 1080) as people with this much grunt are undoubtedly using their PCs on HD TVs @ 1080p. I mean who on earth plays at resolutions over 2000 pixels wide?
I'm amazed at the poor selction of games that they have chosen to benchmark on. I mean 3 old games and 2 very CPU bound games. I seriously have no idea what they where thinking. Nobody is every going to get a quad/tri SLI setup and then go and play serious sam 2. I really hope they redo this with some good benchmarks: 3DMark Vantage, Crysis, Company of Heroes: OF and maybe Oblivion and UT3.
omg...where's crysis, where's ut3...hell where is oblivion?!
I thought this was supposed to be a thorough test, not just a means to show that quad-SLI performs less than 3-way SLI in SOME game titles...
i would like to comment, but i would just repeat whats already been said, this review gets two thumbs down.
Worst review ever.
Why did they test 3 ultra's against essentialy 4 8800GTS 512's. Also its not an equal test because the two system are different, they should have used the same mobo, processor, ram and hdd etc