Benchmark Results: 3D Games
Maingear breaks out of the gate with a big lead at lower resolutions for Call of Duty: World at War. However, the four-GPU configuration of iBuyPower’s dual GeForce GTX 295 graphics units powers through the tougher 2560x1600 tests. All of the results exceed monitor refresh rates, so gamers shouldn’t be able to see the difference with vsync enabled. Also notice that Maingear appears CPU-limited at low and medium resolutions, while iBuyPower's apparent CPU performance cap scales to the highest resolution.
At high details and without anti-aliasing (AA), iBuyPower’s GeForce GTX 295 configuration pushes more frames at the higher resolution while Maingear once again takes the lead at lower settings.
Even the most recent drivers are unable to resolve the long-standing performance problem of Quad SLI at 2560x1600 and 8x AA.
It’s a bad day for iBuyPower when 8x AA is enabled in FarCry 2. The 3-way GeForce GTX 285 graphics of Maingear’s system are still playable at the highest resolution and settings.
World in Conflict favors the Maingear PC, but we’re not certain this is a graphics limitation, as Maingear’s slightly higher CPU overclock appears similar to the performance difference.