Test System Setup

Processor(s): Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.8GHz (190MHz x 20)
Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P (Supplied by Noctua)
Motherboard(s): GIGABYTE EX58-UD5 (Supplied by GIGABYTE)
Memory: 3 X 2GB OCZ Technology PC-12800 DDR-3 8-8-8-24 (OCZ3G1600LV6GK)
Hard Disk(s): Western Digital 300GB Velicorapter (Supplied by Western Digital)
Operating System: Windows Vista SP1 64-bit
Drivers: ATI Catalyst 9.8, ATI Catalyst Cypress Driver, ForceWare 190.62,

As far as results go, we've included the important ones here; single HD 5870 and CF HD 5870 to see what kind of performance adding a second card does. We've also included the GTX 295 which is the top dawg from NVIDIA and to be honest, is still the fastest single graphics card on the market. This setup, however, should give us a bit of a sneak peek into what to expect from the HD 5870 X2 when it's inevitably released.

We've also included the HD 4890 in the results for good measure, so we continue to see just what kind of performance gains are seen from the HD 5870.

Let's get started!

3DMark Vantage

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.1
Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com
Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmarkvantage/
Buy It Here

3DMark Vantage is the new industry standard PC gaming performance benchmark from Futuremark, newly designed for Windows Vista and DirectX10. It includes two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, several new feature tests, and support for the latest hardware.

3DMark Vantage is based on a completely new rendering engine, developed specifically to take full advantage of DirectX10, the new graphics API from Microsoft.

The Performance test was the first test I ran on this setup. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed that the HD 5870 in CF wasn't able to beat out the GTX 295. Once the X test had come out, though, I had a giant grin with it putting out big numbers against the GTX 295.