![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Tuesday , July 20, 2010
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
NVIDIA Surround Technology Performance Review
NVIDIA’s new multi-display Surround Technology is put to the test with GeForce GTX 480 SLI video cards in 3x1 Surround mode. We compare directly to AMD’s Eyefinity technology and the same three displays with 2GB Eyefinity6 HD 5870 CrossFireX and 1GB HD 5870 CrossFireX.
Evaluation Method
We evaluate what each video card configuration can supply us in terms of a playable gaming experience while supplying the best culmination of resolution and "eye candy" graphical settings. We focus on quality and immersion of the gameplay experience rather than how many frames per second the card can get in a canned benchmark or pre-recorded timedemo situation that often do not represent real gameplay like you would experience at home. Then we will follow with apples-to-apples testing in with minimum, maximum, and average framerates.
Test System Setup
We will be using a MSI Eclipse SLI X58 motherboard, an Intel Core i7 920 Overclocked at 3.6GHz, and 6GB of Corsair TR3X6G1600C8D Dominator DDR3.
While it might be "overkill," we use the Core i7-920 processor at 3.6GHz in an attempt to prevent our evaluation from being CPU limited. Obviously, we make every effort to not use CPU limited games for video card evaluations, but the i7-920 at 3.6GHz seems to put many peoples’ minds at ease when it comes to that subject.
For the GTX 480 SLI setup we are using ForceWare 258.69 BETA which introduces NV Surround and 3D Vision Surround support. For the AMD combinations we are using Catalyst 10.6 WHQL.
