MultiGPU Update: Does 3-way Make Sense?

Call of Duty World at War Analysis

1680x1050    1920x1200    2560x1600

NVIDIA's GT200 parts in 3-way SLI rule this benchmark, while the GeForce 9800 GTX+ holds its own. This test definitely shows NVIDIA in a good light across all three resolutions.

1680x1050    1920x1200    2560x1600

The apparent system limitation on single cards does inflate the scaling a little bit here, but there's no doubt that lots of scaling is happening. This time we don't see scaling above the theoretical maximum of 200%, but we do see some big gains. While NVIDIA hardware does do well at low resolution, the best total 1 to 3 GPU scaling at 1920x1200 and 2560x160 goes to AMD.

1680x1050    1920x1200    2560x1600

The story doesn't change much when comparing scaling from 2 to 3 GPUs. We get very decent scaling rates with the 4870 1GB getting dangerously close to the theoretical maximum of 50% at 2560x1600. In general though, CoD:WaW does a good job taking advantage of available GPU horsepower whether it's 1, 2 or 3 GPUs.

1680x1050    1920x1200    2560x1600

Below 2560x1600 the 9800 GTX+ 3-way option actually has decent value (comparatively) in this test. At the highest resolution, the 9800 GTX+ falls a few spots. Again, of the 3-way options, NVIDIA's two highest end options have the lowest value of cards that get something near playable framerates.

We still see lots of two way and single card options that get decent performance leading the way in value over the much more expensive 3-way configurations even at the highest resolution.

In general, with any of these setups, performance won't be an issue below 2560x1600, and even then only the slowest couple might warrant skipping.