16 - Multi GPU 3DMark Vantage | Overclocked GPU performance
3DMark Vantage (DirectX 10)
3DMark Vantage focuses on the two areas most critical to gaming performance: the CPU and the GPU. With the emergence of multi-package and multi-core configurations on both the CPU and GPU side, the performance scale of these areas has widened, and the visual and gameplay effects made possible by these configurations are accordingly wide-ranging. This makes covering the entire spectrum of 3D gaming a difficult task. 3DMark Vantage solves this problem in three ways:
1. Isolate GPU and CPU performance benchmarking into separate tests,
2. Cover several visual and game-play effects and techniques in four different tests, and
3. Introduce visual quality presets to scale the graphics test load up through the highest-end hardware.
To this end, 3DMark Vantage has two GPU tests, each with a different emphasis on various visual techniques, and two CPU tests, which cover the two most common CPU-side tasks: Physics Simulation and AI. It also has four visual quality presets (Entry, Performance, High, and Extreme) available in the Advanced and Professional versions, which increase the graphics load successively for even more visual quality. Each preset will produce a separate, official 3DMark Score, tagged with the preset in question.
The graphics load increases significantly from the lowest to the highest preset. The Performance preset is targeted for mid-range hardware with 256 MB of graphics memory. The Entry preset is targeted for integrated and low-end hardware with 128 MB of graphics memory. The higher presets require 512MB of graphics memory, and are targeted for high-end and multi-GPU systems.
Of course the one number to rule them all. What kind of an effect does X58 have on the 3DMark vantage score ? Well have a look. For each card/setup I also included the results taken on the Core 2 Duo 3.0 GHz platform.
So the 3-way SLI GeForce GTX 280 based X58 system gives back a P score of ~25000 points whereas the same 3-way setup on a 3.0 GHz Core 2 Duo 680i based system gives back only 12219 points.
Mind you that we measure with GPU PhysX disabled. And that goes for all our benchmarks.
