MSI RD480 Neo2

Gaming Performance:

Summary:

The MSI RD480 Neo2 was faster than the Sapphire PI-A9RX480 across the board in the low detail tests when using a single GeForce 6800 GT. There are mixed results compared to the nForce4 SLI motherboards. The general trend was that the RD480 Neo2 was ever-so-slightly slower than them in the CPU limited tests.

In high detail, the performance is very close in all cases - it's not surprising, as we're GPU limited. However, they're more realistic settings compared to what you're going to be playing games at. Occasionally, there is a single frame per second difference, but there is nothing worth making a big deal out of. While comparing two Radeon X850XTs in CrossFire to two GeForce 6800 GTs in SLI is slightly unfair, the 6800 GT SLI kept up with the X850XT CrossFire in Doom 3, but fell a long way behind in Far Cry.

We did have an issue with F.E.A.R. chequer boarding all the lighting during high detail testing on the Radeon X850XT CrossFire setup. We put this down to an insufficient power supply. Unfortunately, we didn't have anything with more juice available at the time of testing. This could account for the fact that high detail F.E.A.R. testing produced lower than expected results. Despite struggling for juice, the game didn't crash or lock up.