Results

With graphics settings to high in 1600 resolution let's check in on our resident resource hog, Crysis.  Crysis in DX9 mode is a far way off from DX10.  DirectX 10 really takes a VGA card to task with it's advanced graphics capabilities.  As we have all seen before, Crysis can bring video card GPUs to their knees like nothing else.  Decreasing our screen resolution to 1024 x 768 just to keep the game play smooth throughout comparisons was necessary.  All settings were set to 'high' with the exception of FSAA which again was kept off. 

This was more than a surprise.  I reran FRAPS within Crysis for a number of runs because, I simple could not accept that the 8800GT bested the dual GPU HD3970x2.  Different points of the game, different action sequences all confirmed our original results.  With the driver woes of the HD3870x2 back in January, I can speculate that this is some of the tradeoff.  But again, both NVidia and ATi optimize drivers to different games.  I fully expect to see the HD3870x2 do some stomping soon enough.

STALKER is a very resource intensive game with a variety of graphics settings within the game.  The most intensive of these is the 'Full Dynamic Lighting'.  This effectively turns on all the eye candy, grass and sun shadows as well as max detail for all areas.  Screen resolution is set to 1920 x 1440.

Here is some of what I was talking about earlier.  I expected a bit more but it is what it is.

Unreal Tournament 3 has been out for a short while and is another DX9 based game.  It's graphics engine has a lot to challenge any VGA card however.  Using the Defiance map with 12 bots in Deathmatch we took a look at our card's performance.  All settings within the game were set to max with FSAA turned off.  Screen resolution is set to 1920 x 1440.

This was a little more "spike" in the action than I anticipated but our results were good.  Not the mop the floor with NVidia we were hoping for with this dual GPU monster.

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Pg 1 - Introduction
Pg 2 - The Card
Pg 3 - Temperature, Sound, Test Bed
Pg 4 - Benchmarks
Pg 5 - Image Quality, Overclocking, Conclusion