Testbed
Motherboard:
EVGA 680i SLI (Supplied by EVGA)
Processor:
Intel Core 2 Duo 6800 Extreme edition (Supplied by Intel)
Memory:
OCZ FlexXLC PC2 9200 5-5-5-18 (Supplied by OCZ)
while testing CL5-5-5-15-CR2T 1066MHz at 2.2V
PSU:
OCZ Silencer 750 Quad Black (Supplied by OCZ)
Hard disk:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 80GB SATA (Supplied by Seagate)
CPU-Cooler:
Freezer 7 Pro (Supplied by Artic Cooling)
Case Fans:
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 12 PWM
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 8 PWM
3DMarks
Straight out of the box, XFX Alpha Dog runs at 670MHz core, 1675MHz Shader and 97MHz memory speed. The tables show that XFX is faster than the rest of the 8800 GT pack. However, it still performs a bit slower than 8800 GTX.
The MSI card is slower than XFX by 10MHz, and it reflects on the results. The last column shows the results of two 8800 GTs in SLI mode. We used Gainward’s 8800 GT and XFX’s Alpha Dog Edition card, and both ran at XFX’s speed – 670MHz.
In 3DMark03, SLI system beats one 8800 GT by 70 percent, and one 8800 GTX by 51 percent. However, in 3DMark06 this advantage sinks to about 13 percent. At these resolutions and settings, SLI system didn’t show significant performance increase. Nevertheless, SLI shows its real strength at higher resolutions where the twin card power really matters, so let’s move on to gaming results.