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Page 4 of 8 Quake 4: Our Quake 4 tests were run on a range of resolutions starting at 800x600 and going up to 1600x1200, with normal settings (No Anti-Aliasing), 8x Anti-Aliasing and 16x Anti-Aliasing. Each setting/resolution combination was tested 3 times to ensure the results were accurate.
The No-AA test gave some quite unexpected results (yes they are accurate, I had to check them half a dozen times to convince myself before I would accept it), with the single cards outperforming the SLI setups and with each setup maxing out at an almost pre-defined FPS (frames per second). We have seen this before with the Quake 4 tests, though usually maxing out at a lower number and we figure the cards are running as fast as the CPU’s processing power will allow, and in this case we have the SLI cards putting slightly more strain on the CPU and thus maxing out at a lower number to the single cards. Only at the max resolution of 1600x1200 do we see the performance of any of the cards start to drop at all, and even then it’s not by much, hopefully the tests involving Anti-Aliasing can provide a more accurate picture of these card’s performance potential.
The 8X Anti-Aliasing test with Quake 4 shows a more predictable result, but we still see only minor improvements for the OC version of the 8800GT over its standard counterpart, with the biggest difference being in the highest resolution, which gives us a 9.5% increase in performance. This is actually a little more than what we expected, but it’s hard to get an accurate result as a percentage at such low frame rates. The difference (in percentage terms) stays fairly consistent as the resolution drops for the single cards, however for the SLI cards, at low resolutions there is a much smaller difference, as low as 1.2%, and only a 7-8% difference in the highest resolution.
The 16X Anti-Aliasing test shows no difference between the two single cards in the high resolutions, and a much smaller difference in the lower resolutions than the 8X-AA test was giving us. However with the cards being really pushed we start to see at least some difference between the SLI setups, however it’s more so in the lower resolutions this time. It’s good to see that when the cards are really pushed with 16X-AA and high resolutions, there is a big difference between the single and SLI setups, up to 81% increase, so those people who invested in an SLI setup know they haven’t (completely) wasted their money.
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