Widescreen Gaming Forum

Here's the first pass:

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php/WS_and_WTH_Benchmarking_%28Core_i7_920_and_9800_GX2%29

Gonna add a few more, then drop in the GTX 295 I have sitting here.

Thanks a lot for all the time you put into this, on top of the rest. I love reading benchmark charts :)

The i7 platform looks very interesting for gaming in high res's with multiple GPUs, be it multi-GPU boards or Crossfire/SLI. It seems to be much better than any nforce chipset to date. 2.7 Gig by core is pretty modest however for such an expensive upgrade, and WiC looks clearly CPU-bound to me - but it's impressive to see what the very same graphics card can achieve on that new platform. :shock:

It'd be great to see how the i920 with two cores disabled compares to the E6700, in order to focus a bit more on pure chipset performance. Quad-cores are still often vastly underused in gaming, but dual-cores tend to show their limits - especially at lower frequencies and coupled with multi-GPU solutions. Well, I know you can't test everything... ;)

Racing title : I'd suggest Trackmania Nations Forever for its built-in benchmark feature. Pretty rare in a racing title afaik, not to mention its native support of ws and TH. If you prefer to conduct long runs in actual gameplay conditions, check out Grid - cockpit view on Shibuya tracks for instance (wet streets in the night = a lot more demanding than the rest of the game...)

Can't wait to see the GTX295 (hopefully) blow those results away :D

Yeah the GTX is just the same as SLI GTX260's (plus a little) so you'd hope so! Still when are you getting quad-SLI! that'd be interesting LOL

I'll stick with SLI GTX280, the memory bandwidth is so much more important at high res...it is still all that holds us back at 5040 (esp with AA).

The core i7 is so much better than core2 but for gaming? Not really that relevant except in a few games (WiC as mentioned) so I am happy with my core2 with a backup of my core quad if some games that I want come out that really need 4 cores.

I'd also be interested in the 295 with heavily OC'd memory, that would be good....

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Dipping bags at Mach1.9

I bought GRID. I'll see what I can do to load it up and run a track. Hopefully I won't suck too bad. I think I'm going to upgrade my power supply as well to a Corsair 1k. Then I could try GTX 285 SLI. I know the bandwidth is going to be an issue. If it's that much better, I would return the GTX 295 to the retail I got it at.

Well the 285 SLI will perform similar to mine, I would imagine. It is only a small clock jump cos of die shrink. My 280's are factory o'clocked at 670/2.5 and I have bumped it to 700. The stock 285 only 650/2.5 ish.
Maybe it will OC much better though, but it'll certainly run cooler and (hopefully) quieter.

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Dipping bags at Mach1.9

Great writeup but I echo the Quad Core vs Dual Core request to see if it really is the new platform or extra core that is giving the increases.

Also, you should overclock the CPU a bit to see how much further improvement can be realized, especially at the higher resolutions.

Looking forward to any updates!

I've now posted some benchmarks for the i7 920 and the GTX 295

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php/WS_and_WTH_Benchmarking_%28Core_i7_920_and_GTX_295%29

Great review, as always. I never seem to get around to doing that sort of stuff. I still have heaps of games I want to finish!

I have order WiC so I will run that on my system to see just how CPU core limited it is, it shouldn't be GPU limited on mine! However I have the dual core in it 'cos so far I have seen no advantage to having a slower quad in games. Be interesting compared to yours.

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Dipping bags at Mach1.9

It takes a lot of time to do them. I forget how much time. I'm torn with doing them. I need to do them to help generate traffic for the site, but I don't enjoy them. I feel like I've accomplished something when I'm done, but I'd rather be playing the stacks of games that I have.

Why do you have to do them to generate traffic? Just because more people search for 'GTX295 review' than wide screen help?
I know nuffink about web design/running

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Dipping bags at Mach1.9