XFX GeForce 9800 GX2 Quad SLI Versus ATI CrossFireX

The Test System

The test system was running Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit with all available Microsoft updates including the hotfixes required for enthusiast video cards to run correctly. ATI CATALYST 8.3 drivers were used on all the Radeon HD graphics cards and NVIDIA Forceware 174.53 drivers were used on all GeForce graphics cards. All results shown in the charts are averages of at least three runs from each game or application used.

The XFX GeForce 9800 GX2 GPU-Z Screen Shot:

The Video Cards:

• EVGA GeForce 9800 GX2 (600MHz/2000MHz)
• ATI Radeon HD X2 – 1GB (825MHz/1.800GHz GDDR3)

An Intel Core 2 Quad QX9650 ‘Yorkfield’ processor was used for testing as it proved to be the best desktop processor when it comes to game performance. The test system was also loaded with 4GB of memory and water cooled to ensure throttling of the processor or memory wouldn’t cause any issues. The ATI CrossFireX test platform had the DDR2 memory set to 800MHz with 4-4-4-12 timings and the NVIDIA Quad-SLI used DDR3 memory at 1333MHz with agressive 7-7-7-20 timings.

ATI CrossFireX Test Platform
Component	Brand/Model	Live Pricing
Processor	Intel Core 2 Quad QX9650	Click Here
Motherboard	Gigabyte X38-DQ6	Click Here
Memory	4GB OCZ Reaper PC2-6400	Click Here
Video Cards	See Above	Click Here
Hard Drive	Western Digital SATA 250Gb	Click Here
Cooling	Corsair Nautilus 500	Click Here
Power Supply	Corsair HX620W	Click Here
Operating System	Windows Vista Ultimate	Click Here

NVIDIA Quad-SLI Test Platform
Component	Brand/Model	Live Pricing
Processor	Intel Core 2 Quad QX9650	Click Here
Motherboard	NVIDIA 790i SLI	Click Here
Memory	4GB Corsair 1800MHz DDR3	Click Here
Video Cards	See Above	Click Here
Hard Drive	Western Digital SATA 250Gb	Click Here
Cooling	Corsair Nautilus 500	Click Here
Power Supply	Corsair HX620W	Click Here
Operating System	Windows Vista Ultimate	Click Here

Now that we know exactly what the test system is, we can move along to performance numbers.