NVIDIA SLI: Call of Duty 4
For our real-world gaming testing, I have split the results up between SLI testing and CrossFire testing. We are interested in comparing how the Skulltrail system, with its 8-cores of processing power, compares to our standard GPU testing platform that uses a dual-core processor. What we want to find is that Skulltrail offers a better overall gaming experience by relieving any CPU bottlenecks that the SLI or CrossFire configurations might offer. To that end, you’ll see four sets of data on the SLI graphs:
- Skulltrail + 8800 Ultra x 2
- Skulltrail platform with two 8800 Ultra cards in SLI
- NV 8800 Ultra x 2
- Our standard gaming platform with two 8800 Ultra cards in SLI
- Skulltrail + 8800 Ultra x 1
- Skulltrail with a single 8800 Ultra
- NV 8800 Ultra x 1
- Standard gaming platform with a single 8800 Ultra
Call of Duty 4 (DirectX 9)
Call of Duty 4 is the next iteration of the very popular CoD series and is a return of the Infinity Ward team that made CoD1 and CoD2 so successful. The graphics for this title are simply amazing, and considering that it is still a DX9 graphics engine, developers of these DX10 titles we use should be shamed! If you want a great single and multi-player experience set in a modern warfare environment, don’t pass up Call of Duty 4.
Call of Duty 4 settings
Skulltrail is actually making a difference for us here with our SLI gaming system in CoD4. At 1600×1200, where the CPU bottlenecks are most prominent, Skulltrail produced a 22% better average frame rate and a 43% higher minimum frame rate. At 2048×1536, the Skulltrail platform still has the advantage in SLI mode but by the time we hit 2560×1600, the differences are much smaller.
Even more interesting is our single GPU results – the Skulltrail platform was consistently slower than the dual-core system.
