Exclusive: SLI Head-to-Head: Monarch Micro-ATX vs. Shuttle SFF
by Jarred Walton on March 6, 2006 8:56 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Far Cry 1.33 Performance
Far Cry remains an impressive game graphically speaking, and it represents another gaming engine that we might see elsewhere. CryTek licenses their CryENGINE for use by other developers, and they're also working on a new game of their own. For the Far Cry benchmarks, we run the Regulator, Research, Training, and Volcano built-in demos, then average the results for a final score. Each map is also run three times. Unfortunately, Far Cry's benchmarking mode does not show weapons fire, and enemy positions aren't always the same (which is why we've run each map three times).
Far Cry represents yet another game where the GTX KO SLI configuration is CPU limited. On the bright side, it means that you can pretty much run almost any game out there at maximum detail settings and still get good frame rates. (You can get acceptable frame rates with a single GTX KO all the way up to 1600x1200 4xAA as well.) Far cry also produces significantly higher frame rates than many of the other games in our test suite, likely due in part to its age. The 6800 GS SLI is slightly faster than a single GTX KO once again. In comparing the Hornet and Shuttle results, in non-GPU limited situations, Shuttle continues to come out on top by a few percent.
Far Cry remains an impressive game graphically speaking, and it represents another gaming engine that we might see elsewhere. CryTek licenses their CryENGINE for use by other developers, and they're also working on a new game of their own. For the Far Cry benchmarks, we run the Regulator, Research, Training, and Volcano built-in demos, then average the results for a final score. Each map is also run three times. Unfortunately, Far Cry's benchmarking mode does not show weapons fire, and enemy positions aren't always the same (which is why we've run each map three times).
Far Cry represents yet another game where the GTX KO SLI configuration is CPU limited. On the bright side, it means that you can pretty much run almost any game out there at maximum detail settings and still get good frame rates. (You can get acceptable frame rates with a single GTX KO all the way up to 1600x1200 4xAA as well.) Far cry also produces significantly higher frame rates than many of the other games in our test suite, likely due in part to its age. The 6800 GS SLI is slightly faster than a single GTX KO once again. In comparing the Hornet and Shuttle results, in non-GPU limited situations, Shuttle continues to come out on top by a few percent.
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JarredWalton - Monday, March 6, 2006 - link
HDCP support is a graphics/display issue. As has been reported, HDCP is not supported on any current retail graphics cards. It's also not supported under Windows XP. We should start seeing HDCP enabled cards (meaning, with the necessary decryption chip) in the near future. The GPUs are ready, but they still need the appropriate chip soldered onto the boards.Personally, I'm really not happy with HDCP at all, so I'm doing my best to avoid it. 1280x720 DivX looks quite nice and runs flawlessly on current hardware. Here's an example from the olympics (18GB compressed to 4.5GB 1280x720):
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/multimedia/tvt...">2006 Olympics Men's Hockey Gold Match
AGAC - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Hey, what's to love about HDCP. That said, it seems that we just will have to swallow that frog... I mean, DivX does look nice indeed. The problem is availability of mainstream content. I think it's going to be a very cold day in hell before you can walk in the regular video rental and get the latest blockbuster title in beautiful DivX 1280x720.DHCP will be broken, we all know that. It only harms the legal user because one will have to upgrade video cards, monitors and god knows what more will not be HDCP compliant. Thanks for the your tip and simpathy. Keep up the good work.
AGAC
DigitalFreak - Monday, March 6, 2006 - link
NT