Intel Core i7 965EE, i7 940, i7 920 Review :: SLI Testing and Crossfire testing

11-08-2008 · Category: Hardware -

By Doc Overclock

As the X58 chipset is the first Intel motherboard chipset to support SLI in all of its forms, it should be interesting to see how it performs with SLI. NVIDIA does not have a license for QPI, requiring them to work with Intel's chipset or they would have been shut out from providing multi-core. One note, support for SLI should be instantaneous and doesn't require anything other than two or three NVIDIA cards and an SLI bridge just like any NVIDIA motherboard.


Intel Core i7 965EE, i7 940, i7 920 Review Crossfire

Crossfire


On the Intel reference board; there were only expansion slots for two video cards. The ASUS P6T Deluxe on the other hand had three slots, allowing for either three ways SLI or Crossfire if you don't mind blocking everything on the left side of the board. Installation was easy as simply inserting two cards and connecting them through the bridges on top of the cards caused the cards to be recognized in Vista. SLI works as advertised on the P6T Deluxe but is not currently supported on the Intel DX58S0 motherboard.


Intel Core i7 965EE, i7 940, i7 920 Review Three GTX 280s

Three GTX 280s


For purposes of this launch I wanted to test a few benchmarks with the new motherboard and CPU. Far Cry 2 is the latest in a series of games from Ubisoft uses Pixel Shader 4.0 effects throughout and in fact has the . 3DMark Vantage is the latest benchmark from Futuremark. Crysis, despite being rather dated today is still a good performance metric for the video cards. The fourth test is PCMark Vantage which is used to measure overall system performance. For purposes of this review I tested two 4870 1GB cards in Crossfire a single 4870 1GB and a GTX 280 due to time constraints I didn't test three cards in SLI but SLI worked as advertised out of the box.


Test System


  • Intel Core i7 965 CPU
  • 3GB Qimonda DDR2-1066
  • Intel 80GB SSD HDD
  • Intel DX58SO Motherboard
  • Lite-On IT DVD-RW Drive
  • Cooler Master 1250W PSU
  • Windows Vista with SP1
  • GTX 280
  • 2 ATI HD 4870 1GB running Catalyst 8.10 Crossfire

Tests


DirectX 9.0

  • 3DMark Vantage
  • Crysis 1.21 patch 1280x1024 4x AA 16x AF High settings Custom FRAPS walkthrough
  • Far Cry 2 1280x1024, 4x AA 16x AF, High settings custom FRAPS walkthrough
  • PCMark Vantage
  • 3DMark Vantage/PCMark Vantage
  • Crysis
  • Far Cry 2