The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Performance

Version: 1.2.0416 Shivering Isles

Settings: Ultra High Quality settings defaults with Vsync disabled.

Our Oblivion test takes place in the south of the Shivering Isles, running through woods over rolling hills toward a lake. This is a straight-line run that lasts around 20 seconds and uses FRAPS to record framerate. This benchmark is very repeatable, but the first run is the most consistent between cards, so we only run the benchmark once and take that number.

Oblivion Multi-GPU Scaling over Resolution


Our tests show that moving beyond two GPUs in a DX9 game that already benefits well from multi-GPU has the potential to make use of three or four GPUs. As resolution goes up, the usefulness of more than two GPUs goes up. Clearly, there is potential for scaling with games that don't make extensive use of features that get in the way of multi-GPU performance. It should also go without saying that this is a technology that should be reserved for the ultra high-end setups. Hopefully illustrating that with resolution scaling will help bring the point home.

Oblivion Performance


Oblivion Perfomance
  1280x1024 1600x1200 1920x1200 2560x1600
NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT SLI 89.8 70.4 59 33.7
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra SLI 113.1 96.1 84.2 57.4
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra 59.5 54.4 46 31.5
NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT 49 37.5 30.6 19.8
AMD Radeon HD 3870X2 (x 2) 120.3 114 104.1 82.8
AMD Radeon HD 3870X2 + 3870 122.9 107.6 91.5 64.5
AMD Radeon HD 3870X2 104.5 82 71.1 48.6
AMD Radeon HD 3870 61.8 46.8 41.5 25.4

AMD tends to lead in this benchmark normally, and the 8800 Ultra barely leads the Radeon HD 3870, which is normally in competition with the GeForce 9600 GT. In this case, the 8800 Ultra SLI loses to the three GPU AMD setup (3870X2 + 3870), while four GPUs show an even more significant advantage at higher resolutions. 9600 GT SLI, which would normally compete with the 3870X2, doesn't really come through in Oblivion.

Oblivion Multi-GPU Scaling over Resolution With 4xAA/16xAF


Enabling AA and AF reveals one of the major strengths of multi-GPU acceleration: antialiasing comes at less cost. In this case, even at lower resolutions, all four GPUs are able to contribute and performance stays high. While CrossFire and SLI both enable huge levels of AA, at high resolutions a little bit goes a long way.

Oblivion 4xAA/16xAF Performance


Oblivion 4xAA/16xAF Performance
  1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200 1920x1200
NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT SLI 72.7 55.4 45.3 26.1
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra SLI 98.1 78.5 68.3 43.3
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra 53.8 42.4 36.1 23.1
NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT 36.9 29.2 25 15.6
AMD Radeon HD 3870X2 (x 2) 106.1 93.3 78.1 54.5
AMD Radeon HD 3870X2 + 3870 87.6 73.6 62.9 42.3
AMD Radeon HD 3870X2 64.4 53.6 46.6 31.7
AMD Radeon HD 3870 36.4 30.9 24.4 16.7

While two 3870X2 cards do lead overall, 8800 Ultra SLI does best the three GPU combination of the 3870X2 and the 3870. Oblivion certainly shows that more than two GPUs can contribute to performance, and that AMD was right when they said DX9 games running under Vista would show the most potential for improvement with four GPU systems.

The Test Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Performance
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  • MAIA - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    "After rebooting a few times to let windows do its thing, we installed the driver and all was well."

    This sentence is soooooo microsoft windows !!! :))

    Sorry .... had to say it.
  • dash2k8 - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link

    I'm just wondering: instead of piling on the number of GPU's, why hasn't a manufacturer just come out with ONE monstrous GPU that does away with the need of using multiple video cards? If someone is crazy enough to spend moola on 4 GPU's, I imagine that person would be equally willing to buy ONE card that has the same horsepower. Just saying.
  • punko - Monday, March 10, 2008 - link

    Thanks Derek for a good review. As you indicated, this may be the future and its good to see the tech reach a point where it is ready for use and can be improved upon as all tech goes forward.

    It also sound like you had a lot of help directly from AMD on this one.

  • gsellis - Monday, March 10, 2008 - link

    "but today a WHQL drier is available "

    Hey Derek, typo in the beginning. Still mirthful about this one. Water cooling and you needed it drier to work with all GPUs?
  • ltcommanderdata - Sunday, March 9, 2008 - link

    I'm just curious as to whether you've checked to see if quad channel memory has any benefit for multiple GPU situations? With 3 or 4 GPUs sucking data, I would presume the additional memory bandwidth provided by quad DDR2-800 would increase performance, especially since dual channel FB-DIMMs are not as efficient as the best dual channel DDR2 or DDR3 setups on desktop boards. It would be interesting to see the results of a 4x1GB setup on Skulltrail vs the 2x2GB setup you used.
  • cerwin13 - Saturday, March 8, 2008 - link

    Would it be wise to try this upgrade without SP1 installed with Vista 32? I am currently using 2x Radeon HD3870 x2s and would like to benchmark with these new drivers, but apparently SP1 isn't officially out yet?
  • DerekWilson - Saturday, March 8, 2008 - link

    other people had luck without SP1; it's not a requirement, but some of our editors did find that it helped with a lot of stuff ...

    you'll want to make sure you have hotfixes:

    929777-v2
    936710
    938194
    938979
    940105
    945149

    as a minimum
  • Ananke - Saturday, March 8, 2008 - link

    XFX has Forceware 169.32, my guess it was added after 9600GT appear. On Nvidia official download site the highest ver is 169.28
  • Ananke - Saturday, March 8, 2008 - link

    XFX has Forceware 169.32, my guess it was added after 9600GT appear. On Nvidia official download site the highest ver is 169.28
  • Incisal flyer - Saturday, March 8, 2008 - link

    Derek, thanks for the very timely and detailed review. I'm going to be building a system for Flight Simulator X and have been trying to figure out the best graphics card(s) for that application. Have you considered benchmarking that sim? A lot of discussion right now on AVSIM etc on what to do in terms of GPUs for people building new systmes. There is a lot of back and forth on advantages and disadvantages of different configs. I realize FSX is a bit of a niche product. Would FSX use multiple GPUs like 2 3870 x2s and are the potential headaches of that configurtation worth it if you are a not a computer geek? Or am I better off just getting a couple of Nvidia 8800s in SLI or a single 3870 x2 and not hassling with the 4 GPU solution? Any help or advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance for your time.

    Incisal Flyer

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