Crysis
An absolute must in terms of gaming, Crysis was tested with its 1.1 patch (optimized for multi-GPU systems) as well as the latest drivers specific to this patch, Forceware 169.28b and the Catalyst 8.1 hotfix. We carried out the internal test in DirectX 9 High mode (forced via the addition of ‘’–dx9’’ behind the executable) and in DirectX 10 Very High. Given the fact that we no longer had access to a 30" screen when the patch came out, we were limited to a resolution of 1920x1200. However, looking at results you can easily see that there is still no possibility of being able to play in 2560x1600 with this game!
We first have to point out that the GPU demo integrated to Crysis is limited by the CPU to more or less 35 fps. Triple SLI therefore cannot make its presence felt here and even displays a slight reduction compared to SLI given its higher costs in system resources.
With antialiasing 4x, we have the same situation although the fps is slightly lower. It is therefore possible that triple SLI isn’t really functional in Crysis in DirectX 9 mode. GeForce 8800 GT performances plummet in SLI because it’s a little too much for GPUs with "only" 512 MB.
In DirectX 10 and with all details pushed to a maximum, triple SLI finally showed a gain though it was small. CrossFire is less efficient here than SLI but this should improve because
the Radeon HD 3870 X2 showed higher gains.
Finally, in DirectX 10 and with antialiasing 4x none of the solutions were up to the challenge. Here again, the GeForce 8800 GT in SLI suffers from a lack of memory.
