Fall '06 NVIDIA GPU Refresh - Part II: GeForce 7950 GT and SLI

Battlefield 2 Performance

This benchmark is performed using DICE's built in demo playback functionality with a few added extras built in house. When using the built in demo playback features of BF2, frames rendered during the loading screen are counted in the benchmark. In order to get a real idea of performance, we use the instantaneous frametime and frames per second data generated from a benchmark run. We discard the data collected during the loading screen and calculate a result that represents the actual gameplay that was benchmarked. While DICE maintains that results over 100fps aren't reliable, our methods have allowed us to get useful data from high performing systems.

During the benchmark, the camera switches between players and vehicles in order to capture the most action possible. There is a lot of smoke and explosions, so this is a very GPU intensive Battlefield 2 benchmark. The game itself is best experienced with average in-game framerates of 35 and up.

We ran Battlefield 2 using the highest quality graphics settings we could. Shadows, lighting, and especially view distance are very important in order to best play the game. In our opinion view distance should never be set to less than the max, but other settings can be decreased slightly if a little more performance or a higher resolution is required.



At our median resolution of 1600x1200, the 7950 GT splits the difference between the two flavors of X1900 XT. We see just slightly higher numbers for 7950 GT SLI than for the 7950 GX2 setup, while the 7900 GS SLI just leads the single 7900 GTX.



The CPU limit for multi-GPU setups is a little lower than with the single cards, and we do begin to see this at 1280x1024. At the same time, without AA, there really isn't a resolution here that any of these cards will have trouble with. All of our tests fall above 50fps even at the highest resolution.



Enabling AA gives ATI a boost in performance relative to NVIDIA under BF2, so this time we see the 7950 GT losing to the X1900 XT 256MB. 7950 GT SLI increases its margin over the 7950 GX2, while the 7900 GS SLI configuration manages to hang on to the performance spot between singe GPU cards and multi GPU configurations.



CPU limitedness is not a factor with 4xAA turned on. There are three classes of performance that are clearly visible here with the X1900 GT, 7900 GT, and 7900 GS making the lowest performance group. 7950 GT SLI, 7900 GTX SLI, and the 7950 GX2 command the lead, while the rest of the cards fall both well above the lower end cards and well below the higher end multi-GPU configurations.