NVIDIA's SLI Pt. 4: CPU selection

NFS: Underground 2

Publisher: Electronic Arts

The Need For Speed: Underground 2 is a title that is heavily limited by CPU speed. We found that even dropping the CPU speed down to 2200MHz, 3700+, reduced the quality of our gaming experience, and we were no longer able to gain a smooth frame rate with any Anti-Aliasing applied at 1280x1024. This led to us finding that 1280x1024 0xAA 16xAF at maximum quality delivered the best-playable gaming experience with an Athlon 64 3700+.

When we played the title using 1280x1024 4xAA 16xAF at maximum quality, we found that the average frame rate remained relatively constant, but our problem was the minimum frame rate - it dropped far too low, making the game choppy and unplayable. When we removed Anti-Aliasing, we found that the average frame rate increased, and the minimum frame rate rose to the high 20's making the game play much smoother.

We needed to reduce the settings even further using a pseudo Athlon 64 3100+. We found that we needed to reduce some of the detail settings such as Car & Road reflection update rate, which both had to be lowered to the medium setting. While we also had to turn particles off completely to increase the minimum frame rate in to the mid-20's to allow us to experience smooth game experience. Again, the average frame rate increased massively, but the all-important average frame rate was lower than the higher-end CPU's delivered.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

Publisher: Ubisoft

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory proved to be much the same as both Doom 3 and The Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay. [b]We found that our pseudo Athlon 64 3100+ delivered the same quality of gaming experience as an Athlon 64 FX-55 .

We were able to enjoy the title with the same level of smoothness across the full range of processor speeds, showing that the title is capable of looking fantastic with two GeForce 6800 GT's in SLI mode, no matter what socket 939 Athlon 64 you have in the system.