Switched From Quad ATI 5870 xfire to Quad NVIDIA GTX580 1.5GB

[FS~Phat]

Ok so i crumbled today and bought some new toys for COD.
Have to say after just testing a single GTX580 1.5GB vram at standard clocks and standard driver 280.19 settings it is way smoother than my quadfire ATI 5870 setup.

Im taking screenies of black death for comparison of single 580, SLI, TRISLI, QUADSLI.... lll post back soon!!!!!!!!!!!

:cool:

[FS~Phat]

Ok and the results are in for single and SLI after i finally managed to get a custom SLI profile to work!

All setting at 1920x1200
2 graphics settings tested
1. Everything high settings and 4xAA with all checkboxes selected vsync off (almost maxed out)
2. Maxed out settings with 4xAA with all checkboxes selected vsync off

Firstly what I noticed.
The GTX580 in both single and SLI is way smoother than my old setup. (for dual SLI only - see notes below)
Only graphical anomaly was in SLI mode with ocassional slight shadow flicker from smoke and very small frame jitter. MUCH SMOOTHER! Likely some more fiddling with more custom settings in SLI profile would all but remove this. An official driver profile from nvidia is the best bet.

Final Performance Notes...
There is currently no benefit with current driver SLI support and game optimisation going further than a 2 card SLI setup with GTX 580.
You get a very minor max increase for TRI SLI and slightly negative scaling for AVG FPS.
Negative scaling for QUAD SLI on both AVG and MAX.
You need mega power supplies for QUAD SLI!
Nvidia 580 has the edge for less big stutters and pauses compared to the ATI 5870 in SLI/Xfire but Nvidia has a noticeable microstutter and surging with anything above 2 card SLI. Compared with the ATI 5870s which have some bigger hiccups and pauses but they are generally smoother.
Nvidia is quicker to settle with scene changes when changing internal and external views with very minimal texture draw delay and stutter.
5870 QuadFire seems to scale a little bit better in terms of MAX and AVG FPS compared to NV QUAD SLI... with the caveats below...

Overall both SLI and Xfire are not officially working and both required work arounds which are not optimal so there will be further hope for future driver profiles and game optimisation.

Image Quality Notes
Anti Aliasing looks better on NVIDIA but not for everything. Mind you I was using standard driver settings so it might be possible to tweak AA quality a bit.

Final conclusion...
A dual SLI GTX580 setup would appear to be the optimal smoothness and performance with current drivers and game code at 1920x1200 res.


OK some stats and pics

Single 580 on high
avg 52
max 98
min 14

SLI 580 on high
avg 64
max 152
min 6

TRI SLI 580 on high
avg 60
max 146
min 9

QUAD SLI 580 on high
avg 55
max 142
min 12

Single 580 Vhigh (Maxed)
avg 48
max 94
min 5

SLI 580 Vhigh (Maxed)
avg 58
max 144
min 18

TRI SLI 580 Vhigh (Maxed)
avg 56
max 139
min 9

QUAD SLI 580 Vhigh (Maxed)
avg 50
max 134
min 8

Single 580 High
https://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1pilV6uH48y2RWybPRKWNIe7hTvHkATyYRpgkJBOJT91S-fPcweaXwur-mRc4r0orpuWIze32o3fc/580-high.jpg

Single 580 Vhigh (Maxed)
https://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1pFop8g0tgtg0pZ_18Ii9B3Rl2y2xsWUCelnVNCa7q70z_IBb cxQtYTg8bh-RQZjoIuhr66rXOvhQ/580-Vhigh.jpg

SLI 580 High
https://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1pzrpjLSgcZjk7E_aXuYiZMKTIZMAtMMom6WMOwDlAgd1ye7q is2cTpbwGdNM7hXp25P0yJHsmQwY/580SLI-high.jpg

SLI 580 Vhigh
https://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1pzrpjLSgcZjlQnJuX_-VaqFEf5RXvfbkRSPXODMzdc-xrLIW47SSMhZGwFDQhyQi9ixNT_VYNHHA/580SLI-Vhigh.jpg

TRI SLI High
https://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1p87Uo9d7MVJ1bWu6r2dRqvB8y8fErA_zF8jCKdwpH3oRFuwG XU1x8sRVJfvumiji79sgFkDmLDhs/580TRISLI-high.jpg

TRI SLI Vhigh
https://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1p87Uo9d7MVJ2EO1dK2DxoY1KK4E99BLI7lvIJGQgRNnDXwfg YiTr2mFpreolofW9zYzRbmvgLsWE/580TRISLI-Vhigh.jpg

Quad SLI High
https://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1pZgD3wpNy1A2a-PKjdf8OHQzZFSONunHUO7djSgvyUrJqmOtu6SXbwda7YtSb5ZF ykAo1T0qbBIM/580QUADSLI-high.jpg

Quad SLI Vhigh
https://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1pZgD3wpNy1A0C0AJc0SsKrVOP9AAlXcylyFs5eF8ewI9MRqH yLBHW2WfOAtz159IkMdvtzAimIpc/580QUADSLI-Vhigh.jpg

[FS~Phat]

OK so Quad SLI took a whole lot more work to get going but not because of the game. System power load was way too high and even running everything at stock clocks it kept doing a hard shutdown when ever i started anything 3d.

I have a 1250W supply that wasnt enough, so since I now have space in the Mountain Mods case I've brought another 1200W supply out of retirement and installed it.

The MotherBoard also needed the second PCIE 12v molex just to be stable at my standard CPU overclock of 4.6Ghz. End result is Quadfire now works with 2 cards on each power supply and the 2nd PCIE molex to MB.

These GTX580's suck some serious power!

Ill post the results above so its all together....

[Ataros]

No fps gain from tri or quad at your res?

Could there be any improvement from tri or quad if you force really hard AA methods in drivers and/or double the resolution? There should be a way to shrink a larger game resolution to actual size of the monitor somehow. This will produce a nice AA effect. (There is an option for this in ArmA2 for example.)

[GhostFiles]

Great!

I recently tried resolution 1920x1080. Sim runs better. I'll try to post a snap.
Asus X58D Premium
I7 920 @ 2.6Ghz
Windows 7 64 Professional(up to date)
6GB Corsair Ram Dual Ch
WD 1Tb
ATI 5770x2 SLI
Resolution 1920x1080
AA x4
V-sync on
Mirror on
32" HDTV
TIR4
All High Settings except for Land Detail

Beautiful Sim and great physics

gf

[GhostFiles]

http:////theghostfiles.org/COD/COD1920A.jpg