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Earlier this week we posted the first article in a series of articles on multiGPU performance, scaling and value. The first article focused on two GPU configurations in both single card and dual card flavors. This is the next installment and today we will cover 3-way performance, scaling and value in much the same way as our first article.
The way we will look at scaling and value are mostly unchanged, with a slight exception in the value department. While we will still be ranking solutions by FPS / $100US (how much performance do you get for every 100 USD spent), we are also taking into account another value factor. As was suggested in our comments on the original article, we are zeroing out the value of solutions that don't provide playable framerates. We give ourselves a wide birth and put the cutoff at 25 fps as some people do get by with lower framerates. For instances where a configuration comes in at less than 25 fps, we assign a value of zero. Changing the way we look at value should help us get a better picture of how both absolute performance and performance per dollar play into the value of a given setup.
While scaling is calculated the same, we are looking at two different metrics. Rather than look again at 1 to 2 GPU scaling, we are looking at peformance scaling from 1 to 3 GPUs and from 2 to 3 GPUs. There will be one more set of bar graphs on every page this time, but we hope to give a well rounded picture of the performance improvement with three cards. Unlike the move from 1 to 2 cards, we aren't looking at a theoretical max of 2x performance in non-CPU limited situations. With the increase from 1 to 3 cards, we could see as much as 200% performance improvement (3x the performance) in theory. We don't get anywhere near this in practice though.
Moving from 2 to 3 cards, the maximum performance improvement we would expect to see with perfect scaling and no CPU or system limitation is 50%. While we might see good scaling from 1 to 3 cards, moving from 2 to 3 cards might show a much less significant improvement. Looking at both metrics will help us get a feel for scaling in general and scaling/value of 3-way as compared to 2-way multiGPU solutions.
For color coding, we find that more than 4 colors in a bar graph can get distracting, so we tried to strike a balance in color use and readability by coloring all the configurations we already looked at in the first installment blue. 3-way AMD solutions are orange and 3-way NVIDIA solutions are green. Representing this much data in a clear fashion is always a balance. Hopefully this does a good job of getting things across.
As with last time, we'll look at how often games scale with 3 cards. This will be based on scaling from one to three as well as from two to three, and we will see more diminishing returns on 3 cards than on two. This is to be expected, but theoretically those who spring for three cards are not interested in thrift anyway. Our value graphs will tie together the performance scaling and price data. What we expect to see is that, even more than 2-way solutions, 3-way multiGPU options require a much higher premium for the performance they deliver and are only really viable options for owners of 2560x1600 monitors.
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Graphics cards equipped with 1GB of video memory are not so extra-ordinary anymore. But does that much memory do any real good especially for a relatively inexpensive mainstream solution? Our today’s review of the Gainward graphics accelerator will help us answer this question.
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<span class="content"><font size="2"> Graphics is infinitely parallel. There is always more work that can be done, and the work can be broken up into millions of completely independent operations. This is very different than most tasks we see done on the CPU that don't scale quite as easily with the number of cores. While we might see small improvements by adding another CPU, we can see nearly double the performance by doubling the number of processors in a graphics card (as long as there are no other bottlenecks anyway). This fact is why AMD and NVIDIA have invested so much money into their respective multiGPU solutions (CrossFire and SLI respectively). </font>
<p><font size="2">MultiGPU solutions have been around for a few years now, and while we frequently include single card multiGPU solutions in our reviews, we only occasionally take an in depth look at multiGPU technology. Some time has passed since the last time we studied the issue, and now that we've fully broken in our Core i7 system, 64-bit Vista, and recent graphics drivers, it's time to get to it.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">Over the past few weeks we've been benchmarking and analyzing lots of numbers. We've looked at single, two, three and four GPU systems across multiple games and resolutions. The configurations we chose to look at are current generation high-ish end hardware capable of operation in 3-way and 4-way configurations. Because of the sheer volume of data we collected, we've decided to break up our analysis into multiple articles. </font></p>
<p><font size="2">This first article (the one you're reading right now) will cover single and dual GPU configurations (including single card multiGPU hardware). The next article will add 3-way solutions along with comparisons back to single and dual GPU setups. The final article will add in 4-way performance analysis and compare it back to the single, dual and 3-way data. Splitting up the analysis this way will allow us to dive deep into each type of configuration individually without spreading the content too thin. We can keep focus on a specific aspect of multiGPU performance and scaling while still making all the relevant comparisons. </font></p>
<p><font size="2">The initial installment also introduces the Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB. Though we expected AMD to push the 4850 X2 out in the same way they launched the 4870 X2, we've only seen one version of the 4850 X2 hit the scenes late last year from Sapphire. In light of what we've seen, we are rather surprised that we haven't seen more fanfare behind this part from either AMD or other board makers. The lighter weight X2 competes more directly in price and performance to the GeForce GTX 280/285, and really fills out the lineup for AMD. Overall, the increased RAM in the 4850 X2 2GB enables great performance scaling even at resolutions the 512MB 4850 can't come close to handling. <br />
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As for the topics we'll cover, our interest will focus on scalability of the multiGPU solutions and the relative value of the same. Before jumping into the numbers, we'll cover the metrics we use to analyze our data. First, we'll look at scaling and talk about the big picture. Then we'll talk about what we've done to calculate a value comparison.<br />
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<a href="http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3517">Read more...</a></font></p>
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Today we are going to check out the scalability of ATI Radeon HD 4870 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260(216SP) graphics cards in CrossFireX and SLI configurations built on an Intel X58 Express based platform.
In our today’s article we will try to find a low-cost dual-card solution that could replace one expensive graphics accelerator and provide high gaming performance.
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GeForce GTX 280 failed to successfully strike back at Radeon HD 4850 X2. However, there is a new warrior entering the scene, armed with a 55nm G200 revision that can work at higher frequencies. Will it be able to champion the honor of "the green" and take revenge ?
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After permanent defences Nvidia finally launches a counteroffensive. The first sign of that was a successful transition of G200 architecture to 55nm technology. And now the company tries to win back the 3D gaming graphics king title by launching a dual-processor graphics card based on this architecture.
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<span class="content" itxtvisited="1"><font size="2"> Just last week, <nobr style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 100%">NVIDIA </nobr> announced both the GTX 295 and GTX 285. Today we have availability on both and test results for the GTX 285. As we weren't able to get power tests done time to include in the GTX 295 review, we also have those available today.<br />
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EVGA was kind enough to provide the hardware for this review. They sent us two GTX 280s for single and SLI testing. They provided us with overclocked cards, but for this article we underclocked them to stock GTX 285 speeds in order to learn what we can expect from non-overclocked variants. <br />
The price point for the GTX 285 is $400, but newegg has parts for $380 right now and overclocked variants for not too much more.<br />
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<a href="http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3501">Read more...</a></font></span>
<font size="2">Following the rival, Nvidia starts using finer manufacturing process. After G92, it is G200’s turn that has finally arrived. Today we are going to discuss the first Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 model using 55nm graphics core modification thatw e managed to get our hands on.<br />
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<a href="http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/evga-geforce-gtx260-216-55nm.html">Read more...</a></font>
For a while there used to be a significant gap in the Advanced Micro Devices graphics accelerators lineup, and the rival – Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 – could easily take this spot over. Now things have changed and thanks to Sapphire HD 4850 X2 2G/1G GDDR3 and Leadtek WinFast GTX 280 we have a great chance to witness one of the most interesting battles between the 3D graphics giants.
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