Testing Methodology and System Setup
Because we are using reference design GTX 480s and GTX 470s for this testing, the specifications and clock speeds will remain the same as in our original GF100 launch article:
GeForce GTX 480
GeForce GTX 470
Now however we are going to be taking a look at systems with double the specifications by adding in a second card and seeing how well the hardware and software are able to scale with this much GPU computing horsepower.
Mmmm, that’s a lotta Fermi.
In today’s article we are simply going to compare the single GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 to a pair of them in SLI, that’s it. If you want to see how the GTX 480 and GTX 470 compare to their competition from ATI, then please check out our GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 review. Also, if you want to see how the new GeForce GTX 465 fits into the picture, be sure to take a look at that review that was published at the end of May.
What we are interested in seeing today is how well the platform scales with the addition of a second card. After all, adding in another $400 investment to get a 15-20% performance increase is probably not a purchase worth making but if we can see game performance jump as much as 70% or more, then you are really into SLI territory.
What we are interested in seeing today is how well the platform scales with the addition of a second card. After all, adding in another $400 investment to get a 15-20% performance increase is probably not a purchase worth making but if we can see game performance jump as much as 70% or more, then you are really into SLI territory.
- Testing Configuration
- ASUS P6T6 WS Revolution X58 + nForce 200
- Intel Core i7-965 @ 3.33 GHz
- 3 x 2GB Corsair DDR3-1333 MHz
- Intel X25-M G2 160GB SSD
- PC Power and Cooling 1200w Turbo Cool PSU
- NVIDIA Driver version: 197.75
