Time to show you some performance results. We start at the top of our test resolution, 2560x1600 which is GPU limited and then move onwards up to 1280x1024 which is more CPU limited.
We'll handle the resolutions page by page. Each showing one resolution and two image quality settings (4xAA / 8xAA). For today's article we decided to use wide-screen monitor resolutions. This was recently requested a couple of times. But if you are on 4:3, then just pick the closest resolution, the frame rate won't differ that much.
Okay, we have a lot of ground to cover. 2560x1600 is a resolution for the real hardcore enthusiast PC gamers. These are the guys with the very best hardware. The first thing we noticed was that 3-way SLI was not responding well at all. There seems to be a driver bug. Though 3-way SLI was fully active and visible through the sliders, it would just not perform the way it should.
That gives the Radeon HD 4870 X2 CrossfireX (4-GPUs) the lead. The reality is though that once the bug will be squashed, the 3-way GeForce GTX 280 will take over again.
These are the results with 8x MSAA and 16xAF. If you play at this resolution, your sweet-spot cards will be Radeon HD 4870 1024 MB and GeForce GTX 260
When we take it down one notch and use 4x MSAA we get an overall increase in performance instantly. Your bang for buck graphics cards in this resolution are Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and a card that is doing surprisingly well, the GeForce 9800 GTX+.
That GTX+ is offering extremely good value here.
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