Mass Effect
Thanks to the UT3 Engine, Mass Effect runs in DirectX 10 mode under Vista. SLI and CrossFire run excellently at 1920x1200 pixels. With anti-aliasing turned on, a second graphics card almost doubles the frame rate. With the more powerful Nvidia models, SLI benefits are only visible as of the higher resolutions with AA. CrossFire, on the other hand, can provide a little more power even without anti-aliasing.
The GeForce 8600 has minor problems with anti-aliasing—the game may crash or freeze, and with the lower frame rate, Mass Effect is not playable. Without anti-aliasing, only the GeForce 8600 and Radeon HD 3650 are too slow. But with anti-aliasing in the higher resolutions, more cards start to run out of steam. The additional graphics memory increment—from 512 to 1,024 MB—had no effect on the 8800 GT.
In order to get the anti-aliasing to work with the Radeon HD 3000-series cards, you need to rename MassEffect.exe to Bioshock.exe. This can lead to graphics errors, but the test system and benchmark scene showed no signs of this. The new Radeon HD 4000-series doesn’t need to have this trick applied. Anti-aliasing is supported with no problems. Resolutions marked with a value of zero indicate that they did not work properly with the specified test card.
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Yet again, loads of this review is missing - get your fingers out people!
yeh what the?? Someone isn't uploading these articles properly, only 7 pages showing, and no scroll bar on the drop down, or even a "next page" link. Only uploaded half the article?
rofl, i don't mean to be picky... but i'm missing something ^_^
To be continued next month folks....
(Or pop over to the USA website for spoilers!!)
Bob
Under 3D full load, the GeForce GTX 260 consumes 336 watts. A solid power supply with 280 to 320 watts of overall power and 23 to 27 A on the 12 volt rail should be sufficient here.
Uhhmmm isn't 336 Watts > 280-320 Watts ??
I've been over to the US site.. The article isn't worth reading guys as the Catalyst driver (v 8.6) is totally out-of-date (current: v 8.8). Just a heads up!!
Bob
well - wouldn't it be obvious to review HD 4870 X2 2GB DDR5 Dual GPU ??? it's the best card from radeon right?
So once again we only have half of the article? WTF?
Could THG get any worse?
Once again Toms UK screws up royally.
Another copy and paste from the US site - and a half-arsed effort at that.
Utter bollocks - just read the US Toms site. All the pages are from there anyway (UK 'staff' can't even bother to change $ to £ in articles) and they're complete.
So once again we only have half of the article? WTF?Could THG get any worse?
Has been going on for a long time iJacks...
I've been over to the US site.. The article isn't worth reading guys as the Catalyst driver (v 8.6) is totally out-of-date (current: v 8.8). Just a heads up!! Bob
+1
Yeh the review is pretty much pointless cos drivers are several months out of date.
Surely if you are comparing "the fastest 3D cards", the 4870X2 should be here
Yet another TomsHardFail.
4870X2??? and i can't see any benchmarks here.
Be nice to have the 9800gx2 in SLI
as also the 280 in TRI SLI
and as others have mention the GDDR5 4870
Maybe these other top dogs will appear in another review.
Haven't I read this already?
Why is it back at the top of the list? Because we have the missing 29 pages?
witch is faster : HD3850 512mb or 8800GT 256mb ? ant how many %? thx
witch is faster : HD3850 512mb or 8800GT 256mb ? ant how many %? thx
8800GT
How can I check the us page? if I write www.tomshardware.com in my firefox browser I am redirected automatically to www.tomshardware.co.uk. I want to see the .com, not the .co.uk
How can I check the us page? if I write www.tomshardware.com in my firefox browser I am redirected automatically to www.tomshardware.co.uk. I want to see the .com, not the .co.uk
Use:
We can see the whole GPU article on the UK website now anyway... Yippie!!
Bob
Sorry (stupid THG comments not working, mutter, mutter)...
Use:
http://www.tomshardware.com/us/
Bob