FarCry - 4x AA/8x AF

Performance Analysis

Performance-wise, the 3D1 is slightly faster than a GeForce 6600 GT SLI card. Probably, this can be attributed to the faster memory on the Gigabyte card. It is not a result of the one-card design, as the 3D1's dual-core concept has no inherent advantages compared to a classic SLI solution. The card also shares the same advantages and disadvantages of the SLI setups: In older games such as UT 2004, the higher CPU load caused by SLI management holds back the 3D performance at lower resolutions. Even when switching to higher resolutions with FSAA and AF turned on the GeForce 6600 GT SLI setup fails to show much of an advantage. A single GeForce 6800 GT is usually faster.

SLI really gets to shine in modern games that make extensive use of shader programs such as Doom III and FarCry. In this scenario, the 3D1 can often outpace a GeForce 6800 GT even with AF and FSAA enabled - unless you're planning on playing at 1600x1200. Here the 6600 GT's limited framebuffer size of 128 MB becomes a bottleneck, slowing these cards down. Another problem with SLI is that it doesn't work with every game. In the worst case scenario, this can result in an SLI setup offering lower frame rates than a single-card system.