Quad cpu's not optimized on ATI?.........yet?

That would explain why 2 4870 X2s and 3 GTX 280s perform pretty close until you slap i7 in and 3 GTX 280s destroy 2 4870 X2s. Damn, I was toying with the idea of 3 GTX 280s for some amazing theoretical performance! I suppose there wouldn't be that much of a difference if this is true and gets fixed.

I wonder then, could this spell driver/GPU performance increases for all Quad core users? Even those outside of the i7 chips?

Probably - the main issue is threading, not specific i7 optimization.

I so hope so... then all the quad-naysayers and DUAL FOR LIFE!!! people (not too many) can't continue to recommend dual cores when quad cores are becoming so cheap

I especially hope it improves single card performance... but i doubt it

^^well the test was made with single cards so it really should...

interesting article, nice find  

And it appears, whether its some certain code, or the actual way the i7's do their threading, thats what we may be seeing in the multicard setup performance numbers. Ive been wondering about this for awhile, and so far, no ones done alot of benching on it

Sorry pal, I wont stop recommending dualcores until the quadcores can compete with the E5200 @ $60-80! I mean common, a CPU that costs half the amount of the cheapest decent quadcore and can overclock easily to heights that allow it to easily outperform it in most applications! Though if you have the money then go ahead! Quadcores are future proof, but an E5200 is just plain amazing for the price/performance. Also I can kill every quadcore, and perform on par with i7 with my much cheaper E8600 with a good overclock! Common, give me one thing that is more fun than a CPU stable @ 5.0 Ghz on air (barely I will admit)!

Ummm. Here's one.

http://www.ferrariusa.com/home.php

 

Since weve pretty much reached the pinnacle of clock speeds, or rather, every single improvement we see becomes less and less, the vast improvements will come in IPC (tho less and less as well) , and multi core/multi threading.

Its like when people went from Black and white TVs to color TVs. Alot of stations didnt have color yet, and the color sets were crappy for true color, and mixing the color in the image often caused for fuzzy results, and color exactness wasnt that close,whereas B&W sets were cheap, and the video quality was superb.

Weve seen this before when singles were king, and the newer duals were clocked lower, and didnt perform as well, and cost much more. Its up to the individual as to how often they upgrade, and their uses of their rigs. For gaming only, since its so single threaded at this time, having a dual still holds its worth

i absolutely love the idea of quads, its just that at the moment they offer no gaming benefits over duals, they cost more, they suck more power, they are less stable, and harder to/less of an overclock.

because they understand how it works maybe? ATI will release a new driver set and it will be how it was 2 weeks ago lol

Possibly they already have with Big Bang2?

They should have used older nVidia drivers to see if this is when it was implemented, and possibly this means on a game for game basis? and each games possibilities?

the new drivers are sweet. i didnt gain in 3dmark but games like UT3, Fallout3 and Crysis it is noticeably better. i am running a dual core so it isn't as relevant but it is their best driver release in a while.

Is this in DX10 only? What Im getting at is, if its better on DX10, then it goes to whats being said or claimed in the article, or better results anyways vs DX9. It may not be exclusive to quads, who knows?

the 180.48 drivers were released the same day as the i7 was. Initially, i dont think there was a XP driver release so I am inclined to agree with ya there on the DX10 point. All their high end cards benefited from it so it was intended for card performance without the focus being specific to the i7 from what I gather from it.

blood raven has a point  

but i mean... for the people who can spend a little bit more than 60 $... hehe