Performance Test for GTX 280 SLI on X58 Platform

It's somehow hard to believe that when Intel finally goes ahead and officially introduces its next-generation desktop platform, in the form of the X58 motherboard chipset and the new Core i7 processors, it will get many “wows” and “ahhs” from the fans.

This is mostly because we already have a load of details regarding the features and even the performance potential of Intel's next-generation processors. In turn, all these enable us, users, to have a pretty good understanding of what we should expect from the new Intel hardware, even before any of these products hit the market.

 

One of the more recent reviews regarding the performance potential of Intel's upcoming Core i7 processors comes from VR-Zone. The idea behind it was to check out the performance capability of two GeForce GTX 280 graphics cards connected in SLI mode on an ASUS P6T Deluxe X58 motherboard that was also equipped with a Core i7 Extreme 965XE processor. More specifically, the guys over at VR-Zone wanted to test how the upcoming Intel desktop platform would combine with NVIDIA's flagship GTX 280 graphics card, in terms of attempting to deliver the best graphics performance for a high-end desktop gaming rig.

 

They have obviously used two of the most graphics-demanding gaming applications released to date, namely Far Cry 2 and Crysis Warhead. After running a series of tests, the test platform rendered some pretty impressive FPS numbers for three high-resolution settings, namely 1600x1200, 1920x1200 and 2560x1600. For Far Cry 2, the platform achieved 98.71 Average FPS at the lowest resolution, while at 2560 by 1600, it got 69.33. With Crysis, things weren't as good, especially at the highest resolution, where it achieved only 16.15 FPS.

 

For both games, the settings were set to High Quality, or Enthusiast (in the case of Crysis), and the Anti-Aliasing was set to 0.