TechReport takes the current “state of the art” in high-end video setups, AMD CrossFire and NVidia SLI, and runs them in some gaming benchmarks with hardware from several vendors. The goal is to find out not just whether AMD or NVidia is better, but which cards pair up the best for the buck. No surprise really which ones wins right now:
Finally, the performance of two GeForce GTX 580 cards in SLI is well and truly bitchin’. The power draw and noise levels are at least reasonable for this class of setup, too. There are few substitutes for a GTX 580 SLI rig at this very moment, although as we’ve noted, some potential competition from AMD is imminent.
Perhaps what I found most surprising was this:
The easiest call we can make is that the Radeon HD 6850 CrossFireX setup does indeed offer performance comparable to a single GeForce GTX 580 at a lower price. That combo adds up to a very nice value proposition, provided you are willing to sacrifice four expansion slots worth of space in your PC for graphic cards—and provided you’re willing to live with the occasional compatibility and performance pitfalls one will inevitably encounter with a multi-GPU solution.
It’s surprising in two ways, to me:
- Bad thing for AMD: That a single GeForce GTX580 is powerful enough that it takes 2 Radeon’s to match it.
- Good thing for AMD: That the two Radeons are cheaper than the GeForce.
Not sure if those balance out.
[H]ard|OCP has an article showing how two GTX 460s @ $330 is essentially equal to one GTX 580 @ $520. While the GTX 580 is somewhat smoother in game play than the 460s in SLI, the 460s have a higher average frame rate in many games.
@ Steve True.. And I suppose the same point could be said in the opposite direction: It’s a bit scary for Nvidia if their top-of-the-line card can be matched with just 2 low-end AMD cards.
“That a single GeForce GTX580 is powerful enough that it takes 2 Radeon’s to match it.”
I’m sure this comparison can be thrown out every which way. There are plenty of Radeon cards that can take on two of NVidia’s… Any top of the line card versus an inferior card from the opposition is going to suck. How about we do this when you get your hands on two Radeon HD 6990 cards.