INTRODUCTION AND TEST SETUP
The purpose of this article is to demonstrate and compare high resolution gaming performance of EVGA GTX 280 GPUs in four different scenarios.
1) Single Card Stock Clocks
2) Single Card Overclocked
3) SLI Stock Clocks
4) SLI Overclocked
Stock Clocks are Nvidia's reference clocks which are :
Core 602 MHz
Shader 1296 MHz
Memory 2106 Mhz Effective
The overclocked settings in both SLI and single card mode are:
Core 720 MHz
Shader 1485 MHz
Memory 2480 Mhz Effective
The test setup is as follows:
Motherboard EVGA 780i SLI
CPU QX9650 @ 4.0 GHZ (1600 X 10)
RAM 4 GB GEIL Esoteria @ 800 4-4-4-12-2T
GPU 2 X EVGA GTX 280 SLI (Forceware 180.7)
Sound Card Auzentech Prelude 7.1
Monitor Gateway 30" XHD
OS Vista X64
BENCHMARKING METHODOLOGY
Synthetic tests such as 3DMARK06 are easy to perform as all you have to do is run a test and the results are conveniently output as an overall score and average frame rates. Games however may or may not be so easy to benchmark and there are multiple ways to benchmark a game. For this analysis, I have used two methods :
-Built in Demo : A lot of games these days come with a pre-recorded demo which the manufacturer deliberately includes for gamers to benchmark the game and gauge the performance of their systems. It gives you an idea of how well your PC will be able to run the game. This sort of benchmark is good since the exact same scene is run each time you play it. This gives you consistent Frame rate results. The downside is that it may not necessarily be comparable to the actual gameplay performance in the game for a variety of reasons. For example AI, or sound might be disabled in the demo but real world gaming will obviously have that.
-Real world Benching : A lot of benchers prefer real world benching. They use a program called FRAPS which runs in the background and monitors your frame rates as you play the game . This is useful since you get an idea of the actual gameplay performance. Another benefit is that you get frame rates recorded with time so you can clearly see when your fps dipped below average and what not. You can also very easily get the min, max and average frame rates. However, your results will not be consistent and totally accurate, you will not be able to make a full comparison between your results and someone else's and its tedious !
BENCHMARKS USED
The following benchmarks were used for the analysis :
Half Life 2: Lost Coast
FEAR
Devil May Cry DX 10 Demo
Race Driver : GRID (FRAPS)
Quake 4 (Hardware OC Benchmark)
Far Cry 2 DX10
Unreal Tournament III
Call of Juarez DX10 Benchmark
PT Boats: Knights of the Sea DX10 Demo
Crysis Demo Gpu Test
3DMark06
Call of Duty 4 (FRAPS )
Lost Planet DX 10 Benchmark
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