Skyrim
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (DirectX 9)
The Empire of Tamriel is on the edge. The High King of Skyrim has been murdered.
Alliances form as claims to the throne are made. In the midst of this conflict, a far more dangerous, ancient evil is awakened. Dragons, long lost to the passages of the Elder Scrolls, have returned to Tamriel.
The future of Skyrim, even the Empire itself, hangs in the balance as they wait for the prophesized Dragonborn to come; a hero born with the power of The Voice, and the only one who can stand amongst the dragons.
Our settings for Skyrim
Here is a video our testing run through, for your reference
As we saw in earlier article, the FRAPS results do match our Frame Rating results with Skyrim – CrossFire and SLI appear to working as expected!
Both single card configurations look pretty good in our frame times plot with the green and black lines pretty thin and tight. Both CrossFire and SLI see some additional frame variance though the CrossFire does have it worse in many cases throughout.
In our minimum FPS percentile graph you can see that the average frame reates for the GTX 660 Ti and HD 7950 are very similar though the SLI combination runs a bit faster than the HD 7950s in CrossFire. As often happens in games that have some CPU bottleneck in them, CrossFire and SLI frame rates drop down closer and closer to the results from the single GPUs until meeting them in the 95th mark or so.
Our ISU (international stutter units) frame variance data shows the GTX 660 Ti single card to have the best results though it, the Radeon HD 7950 and even the GTX 660 Tis in SLI are all pretty close. Only the HD 7950s CrossFire runs higher.
Well things are already different at 2560×1440 with some changes going from the FRAPS results to the observed frame rates of our Frame Rating system.
CrossFire definitely has more problems as we jack up the resolution to a higher level as is evident by the high variance in the large sections of orange, representing frame times. SLI however continues to look pretty strong with only some larger areas of variance towards the end of the run.
With the return of runts to the equation for CrossFire, Skyrim at 2560×1440 doesn't look as good for AMD as it did in previous articles. SLI is still going strong.
AMD's HD 7950s in CrossFire ramp up frame time variance pretty steadily starting at the 30-40th percentile while SLI doesn't see it occur until the 95th+ level.
Again, another instance in which we did not get solid Eyefinity + CrossFire results thanks to dropped frames. SLI GTX 660 Tis scale well though the HD 7950 is clearly the better single card option for multi-display gaming with Skyrim.
I apologize for the lost information here but clearly you can see the HD 7950 single GPU solution is running moderately slower than the GTX 660 Ti cards in SLI but is also outputing frames much more consistently.
In this case the SLI GTX 660 Ti cards have the most variacne though we don't get past the 6 ms mark until well into the 95th percentile, which should still result in a very solid game play experience.
I can’t believe the amount of
I can’t believe the amount of trolling over this article. I consider myself loosely an AMD fanboy when it comes to video cards. I don’t really have an issue recomending nVidia cards to friends if that is where their pricing falls but I, personally run AMD. I don’t see anything malicious about these articles and I find them very interesting and detailed. It’s not going to stop me from buying a 7950 within the next month to replace my 5850 (Which let’s be honest is still pretty darn good for today’s games). I will just be happy that AMD knows about the issue and is working on a solution so I can get a nice fully functional Crossfire set-up later when they drop in price.
OK, AMD admits a issue then
OK, AMD admits a issue then stop showing the comparisons with crossfire. What is the point is reviewing the same issues time and time again like something is suddenly going to change as we hit a different price point. This isn’t a comparison at this point. If what you say is true then post this as a buyer beware when reviewing AMD cards about crossfire. What your doing here is the same as reviewing a nVidia card nad every article mentioning AMD crossfire is broken.
If you want a single GPU card no issue. If you want multi GPU go with nVidia at this point or move up to the next higher single GPU AMD. But remember with crossfire X when this fix is in place you can continue to boost your performance buy adding the next gen AMD. All nVidia offers is physx.
I agree with all of that and
I agree with all of that and would also like to suggest PCper explores the 3rd party apps like radeon pro that fix a lot of these issues. Much more useful than telling us Xfire is broken over and over again
I agree with all of that and
I agree with all of that and would also like to suggest PCper explores the 3rd party apps like radeon pro that fix a lot of these issues. Much more useful than telling us Xfire is broken over and over again
I wouldn’t mind seeing 3-way
I wouldn’t mind seeing 3-way CF/SLI, as an article a while back by THG found 3-way CF helped a while back.
I would like seeing RadeonPro, but realize that the fixes all include FPS limiting, which obviously isn’t ideal.
I would also like to see different ranges of runt frames. 20 pixels high is 2% of your screen. That is really small. You could fairly increase that number some.
The exposure of Crossfire
The exposure of Crossfire problems will force AMD to fix it. HOW IS THIS A BAD THING?
The way this is a bad
The way this is a bad thing:
1. I own a 7950 Crossfire setup which looks perfect to me (I use RadeonPro), and my initial reaction was that I should sell them and buy Nvidia, imagine how this could impact sales of people just considering AMD. I think the results, while quite accurate in and of themselves, should be better quantified in the real world (lets be honest can anyone at PCPer in a blind test really tell the difference between AMD and Nvidia)?
2. The graphs completely misrepresent what is happening on the screen. If you look at these graphs you imagine this stuttering mess on the screen, the truth is nothing close to that (as I said I can watch my rig in the real world).
3. It is completely beating a dead horse, we get it, the Crossfire has “major issues” when you enhance and slow down the frames to a crawl (which has zero bearing on how it looks in the real world), no reason to post the same results for each Crossfire compatible card, we already know what they are.
I am no AMD fanboy, I want all of the info I can get so next time I drop $1,000.00 on video cards I have all of the available info, I just think the info should be presented in a more realistic form, to me this is all quite inconsequential to real world gaming performance.
The problem isn’t that you
The problem isn’t that you don’t get playable frames in crossfire. It is that you aren’t gaining full benefit from crossfire. When choosing between Crossfire and SLI, what will help you more so you can plan ahead.
And if you use v-sync, the limited testing has shown it helps or fixes the issue (only tested on 2 games so far, it could be the FPS limiting aspect that helps, and not v-sync itself).
“The problem isn’t that you
“The problem isn’t that you don’t get playable frames in crossfire. It is that you aren’t gaining full benefit from crossfire.”
That right there to me is an accurate and thoughtful representation of what is going on here. That would have been a much more accurate way to present this information instead of the current “AMD Crossfire is a stuttering mess” message.
I have been on every review
I have been on every review website there is and was for well over a decade, and argued with every fanboy of every type – and NEVER has a single amd fan or otherwise EVER MENTIONED “radeon pro”…
So who cares if NOW, you use it. For YEARS not a single amd fanboy CF user was using it, and if they were THEY LIED AND KEPT IT A SECRET BECAUSE THEY KNEW AMD SUCKS WITHOUT IT.
So who really cares at this point what lying hidden crutch amd needs for a “quicky bandaid patch” for it’s crapster crap crossfire epic failure ?
It’s a big fat excuse for YEARS of total loserville and lies.
I’ll also mention once v-sync and radeon pro hack the frame rate down to 30 or 60, YOU MIGHT AS WELL NOT USE AN AMD CROSSFIRE SOLUTION AT ALL BECAUSE YOU CANNOT USE FRAME RATE POTENTIAL ON IT FULLY, YOU HAVE TO CRIPPLE IT FOR IT TO WORK.
What we need now is a 30fps chart and 60 fps chart with crap amd cards listed running vsync and radeon pro and the chart can tell us which pieces of crap can do 30 and 60 fps and we can THROW OUT EVERY OTHER FRAME RATE EVER LISTED FOR THE CRAP AMD CARDS.
“The problem isn’t that you
“The problem isn’t that you don’t get playable frames in crossfire. It is that you aren’t gaining full benefit from crossfire.”
That right there to me is an accurate and thoughtful representation of what is going on here. That would have been a much more accurate way to present this information instead of the current “AMD Crossfire is a stuttering mess” message.
Interesting test, if what you
Interesting test, if what you have tested is valid, AMD is in deep-sh*t once again. If not, there is some kind of money transaction going on…
Nonetheless, thanks for all your efforts.
Quick Google “geforce frame
Quick Google “geforce frame metering” and you will find out why the nVi cards rarely have runt frames. In fact, nVi cards DO have them. They just delays those frames a bit to match with other good frames’ speed, therefore the frame time chart looks good miraculously. And you, the user, will have to deal with input delay.
For me, an AMD cards and a 3rd party FPS cap software is the best. No input lag, no stuttering. And the image quality from AMD is always superior.
wow, it’s spot on data, tough
wow, it’s spot on data, tough to take in, especially if you purchased Radeon’s since the begining but it is true.
but GOD People – stop with the flaming!!!.
AMD will have to do a hardware re-do to fix this, i don’t really expect anything to come out for a year. i don’t really think that anyone misled on purpose – this is all new testing data.
AMD still makes an ok card- but the issue is with multiple cards.
answer- don’t buy multiple lower cost cards with AMD
I wish you’d start testing
I wish you’d start testing with newer drivers. They have 314.22’s out, had 314.21 out, and even a 314.07 all in WHQL, but you’re still on beta .07’s? I think they even had a 314.14 whql in there.
Many games have been optimized since then. Great data, just want later Nv drivers as you’re a few behind at best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ3U2P8ZLz4
15% for 314.07 vs. 314.21 in tomb raider, others show basically the same and in some cases more and this was on an old 9600GT card…LOL. Who knew?
Sorry for the huge review,
Sorry for the huge review, computer repair in schaumburg but I’m really loving the new Zune, and hope this, as well as the excellent reviews some other people have written, will help you decide if it’s the right choice for you.