NVIDIA's 3-way SLI: Can we finally play Crysis?
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 17, 2007 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
So, you wanna 3-way?
We ran the following games in their corresponding quality settings:
| Game | Resolution | AA | AF | Detail Settings |
| Unreal Tournament 3 | 2560 x 1600 | 0X | 16X | Highest in-game |
| Bioshock | 2560 x 1600 | 0X | 1X | Highest in-game |
| Oblivion | 2560 x 1600 | 4X | 16X | Ultra High Quality defaults |
| Call of Duty 4 | 2560 x 1600 | 4X | 16X | Highest in-game |
| World in Conflict | 2560 x 1600 | 4X | 4X | Very High Quality defaults |
| Crysis | 1920 x 1200 | 0X | 1X | High Quality defaults |
We tried to push the graphics settings as far as possible while still being playable, there's no point in showcasing incredible improvements if they aren't playable on 3-way SLI. Now onto the results:
| Number of Cards | UT3 | Bioshock | Oblivion | CoD4 | WIC | Crysis |
| 8800 Ultra x1 | 66.2 | 40.5 | 25.9 | 41.5 | 21 | 24.4 |
| 8800 Ultra x2 | 122 | 61.9 | 47.5 | 78.9 | 27 | 42.2 |
| 8800 Ultra x3 | 146.1 | 103.8 | 49 | 100.7 | 31 | 43.2 |
| Configuration | UT3 | Bioshock | Oblivion | CoD4 | WIC | Crysis |
| 2-way SLI Improvement over 1 card | 84% | 53% | 83% | 90% | 28% | 73% |
| 3-way SLI improvement over 2 cards | 20% | 68%* | 3% | 28% | 15% | 7% |
| 3-way SLI improvement over 1 card | 121% | 156% | 89% | 143% | 48% | 85% |
Overall performance scaling ranges from virtually nonexistent in games like Oblivion, to noticeable in games like Call of Duty 4 and Unreal Tournament 3.
We can't really explain why we saw such great scaling in Bioshock, but we repeated the test countless times only to see the same results. It doesn't exactly make sense that the jump from two to three cards would yield more of a performance boost than the jump from one to two cards, so take those results with a grain of salt.
You can't use the word value to describe the benefit of 3-way SLI, as increasing your graphics investment by 50% to increase performance on the order of 0 - 30% just doesn't make sense.
The other thing to keep in mind is that 3-way SLI also doesn't really make games like Crysis any more playable, which is exactly where we need the additional GPU power. There's supposed to be a Crysis SLI patch coming out in the near future that should improve SLI scaling, but given that we could only run the game smoothly at 1920 x 1200 with High Quality defaults, we doubt that 3-way SLI is the solution to perfecting your PC's Crysis performance.
Call of Duty 4 showed some excellent scaling, but the bang for the buck is the issue more than anything. A 30% increase in performance over a two card SLI setup is nice, but we'd put our money on being able to get that same performance increase by waiting for an updated G92 version of the 8800 Ultra and SLI-ing a couple of those together.
The other thing that this subsection of game tests shows us is that there are more games that scale poorly than games that scale well. We could make an argument for 3-way SLI if everything scaled like Call of Duty or UT3, but then there are games like World in Conflict, Oblivion and Crysis that just don't.
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IKeelU - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
When will this nonsense stop? It is perfectly reasonable for a game company to "permit" users to increase the detail if they so choose. On "high" the game looks and runs great on a sub-$400 video card. In fact, on "high" it looks better than anything out there, on any platform. At least with a "very high" setting available, the game will continue to look good a year from now when other games have caught up.andrew007 - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
Uuuh... no, Crysis is not playable at "high" at any decent resolution on my 8800GT and 3.4GHz overclocked quad core Q6600. Decent being 1280 x whatever. And when you drop to medium, the game looks nothing special. Sure, there are a few areas that look great (forest level for example) but overall I was certainly not blown away. Unlike replaying Bioshock in 1920x1200 which this setup is capable of running very smoothly and which looks amazing in DX10. Quite simply, Crysis is one of the worst optimized games ever. At least it doesn't crash, that's something I guess. Looking forward to replaying it in 2 years. Come to think of it, it was the same with Far Cry, it took 2 years to be able to play that game with decent frame rates.JarredWalton - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
There's nothing that says Crytek can't make a game where maximum detail settings exceed the capacity of every PC currently available. We've seen this in the past (Oblivion for one), and then a year later suddenly the game is more than playable at max settings on less expensive hardware. It doesn't appear that Tri-SLI is fully implemented for many titles, and considering the age of Crysis I'd expect more performance over time. Just like many games don't fully support SLI (or support it at all in some cases) at launch, only to end up greatly benefiting once drivers are optimized.FWIW, I'm playing Crysis on a single 8800 GTX at High detail settings and 1920x1200 with a Core 2 Duo 3.0GHz 2MB (OC'ed E4400). It might be too sluggish for online play where ping and frame rates matter more, but for single player I'm having no issues with that res/settings. It's a matter of what you feel is necessary. I'm willing to shut off AA to get the performance I want.
tshen83 - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
First of all, people who will fork over 1500 dollars worth of GPUs will want to play all games at the highest settings. That means highest AA and AF settings. I don't think you used AA and AF in your testing. It is almost pointless to play without AA for such a nice setup at 120fps(bioshock) where you are becoming CPU bound rather than GPU bound.Secondly, your Crysis test used 1920x1200. Why not 2560x1600? Why not 2560x1600 at 4xAA and 16xAF? Crysis at 1920x1200 without AA and AF are severely CPU bound in your case, as you have witnessed that a faster CPU gave you linear scaling.
Third, there is actually no point of testing triple SLI at any other resolution other than 2560x1600. The target audience triple SLI is aimed at are those with 30 inch Cinema Displays.
I think to be fair, you should rerun the benchmarks in a non-CPU bound situation with AA+AF on, you will see the proper scaling then.
Thanks,
eternalkp - Tuesday, December 25, 2007 - link
very good point TshenI have a 30inch monitor.
the 7900gtx was killing my frame rate.
i was getting average 25fps @ 2560x1600, medium, 2X AA, 16X aniso...in FEAR Perseus Mandate.
Just bought MSI OC 8800GTS G92 and very happy with it.
Now i can crank up maximum graphic setting, 4X AA, 16X aniso @ average 40fps...very nice. :D
Crysis is a hot engine, i only get 30fps @ medium, AA off.
YES. what is the point of 3 GPU and have your AA/Aniso off?
game will look like crap.
Crysis recommends 4gb of ram.
kmmatney - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
"Third, there is actually no point of testing triple SLI at any other resolution other than 2560x1600"The point was testing at settings that are "playable". Who cares if the framerate goes from 8 to 12 @ 2560 x 1600. Its unplayable.
I don't see how even an "enthusiast" wouldn't see triple SLI as a wate of money, though.
cmdrdredd - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
The point is that running 1600x1200 is really not anything you shouldn't be able to do with one card. Even 1920x1080 in many games is perfect. Showing off 10000000fps means jack, turn the res and AA/AF up and show us what it can push out.defter - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
The author missed one advantage of 3-way SLI:Of course it doesn't make any sense to spend >$1500 on three 8800GTX/Ultras today, but what about those folks that already have a SLI 8800GTX/Ultras?
For them adding a third card could be a reasonable upgrade option in comparison to replacing both cards with new G92 based cards.
3-way SLI isn't for everyone, but it has its advantages.
praeses - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
I was under the impression that bioshock did not support AA in DX10. If that is indeed the case, that's hardly the fault of the benchmarker/reviewer.Also, I see much merrit in benchmarking at 1920x1200, its a much more common resolution and desktop-friendly resolution given the physical foot print of monitors. Lets be honest, many games aren't sitting 4ft from their displays. At 2-3ft a 24" display which most likely has 1920x1200 is much more comfortable for longer action based viewing. Ideally though they would have a lower dot pitch or simply higher resolution on the smaller screen.
tshen83 - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - link
One more thing: you are using Vista Ultimate 32bit with 4GB of memory. Since in 32bit, you have 3 768MB Ultras(2.4GB reserved just for video cards) , the system will only see about 1.5GB of memory. That is not sufficient system memory for high resolution benchmarks, especially Crysis.