Graphics AMD 7970 CrossfireX vs nVidia GTX 680 SLI Scaling (2-Way) Benchmarked

Just put together an AMD CrossfireX vs nVidia SLI Scaling (2-Way) graph for though who are interested in seeing how the two cards scale across different resolutions.

Test Bed:
ASUS Rampage IV Formula Motherboard
Intel Core i7 3960X (Sandy Bridge-E) processor
16 GB Corsair DDR3-1600 RAM
Enermax Platimax 1500W PSU
Windows 7 x64

High '%' = Better Scaling with the addition of the second card:


The data used for the graph was taken from: http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/2641/nvidia-geforce-gtx-680-quad-sli-review-english-version

Different watermark on the images because I go by a different handle on another forum.

 

That's interesting. I believe back in the GTX 400/ HD 5000 time that it was the other way around primarily. The GTX x60 are renown for their phenomenal scaling aren't they? We'll have to see what the results are when the GTX 660/650 comes out, it seems to me that midrange cards tend to have better scaling than super high end stuff. But I'm no SLI/CFX expert, so I could be way off here. I only looked into it as a matter of mild curiosity.

Also ha at Skyrim scaling. Is that because of a capped framerate? And what the frack at Batman scaling? I blame AMD's drivers.

 

Yea the Batman scaling threw me for a loop negative scaling been a while since I saw that outside of the 6990 and 590.

Regarding skyrim, from what I hear its very CPU limited although some of the few new updates were supposed to have improved that. Not too sure myself.

 

Batman is probably because bad drivers, near as I can assume. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be, I mean ATI is notorious for their bad drivers. And since Skyrim is a console port, yeah I think it's safe to say it's CPU limited.

 

Interesting stuff. Having a look at the linked review, there's hardly any difference in performance between the 7970 xfire and 680 SLI in most cases.

I wonder if Driver maturity is a factor here? AMD has had some time on the 7970s now, but the 680 drivers are new?

 

I think this will change when Nvidia releases some better drivers for Kepler.

 

Looks like for eyefinity though that the 7970 pips the gtx, surely this has something to do with VRAM?

 

It looks to me like at high settings, the 680 is barely ahead of the 7970, but at ultra settings the 680 is slightly behind. It could be either VRAM or that the 680's surround system is still immature and needs some work.

 

Or it could be release day drivers

 

Isn't AMD supposed to be the one with the bad drivers? Nvidia's are supposed to be flawless even on release.

I wouldn't be surprised if Nvidia still have a bit of smoothing over to do on both areas. AMD have the lead on multi-display, not unlikley for Nvidia to still have some wrinkles to iron out as they catch up. Compound early driver problems with the complications of a Surround setup and it's easy to see how software problems could arise.