GTX 280 SLI

GTX260 3Way SLI

Crysis Testing Medium

Crysis Medium

Performance Thoughts: There is nothing particularly of interest here. The GTX260 and GTX280 both pull ahead of the 9800GX2. Crysis is not particularly the best scaler for SLI as the 9800GX2 doesn't perform very well here. Unfortunately Crysis also seems heavily CPU dependent at these settings and SLI reached a hard CPU bottleneck. It should be noted that this game's performance with SLI will scale better as clock speeds increase on your CPU.

Crysis Testing High

Crysis High

Performance Thoughts: These settings tell a slightly different story. The 9800GX2 and 9800GTX solutions fall behind both the GTX260 and GTX280 rather significantly, most likely due to the aforementioned running out of video memory due to their 512MB memory limitation. At these settings, with the memory limitations, significant stuttering was observed from the 9800GTX and 9800GX2 configurations. As with Medium settings, Crysis SLI scaling can be very CPU dependent; raising your clocks will increase the relative performance of your Crysis performance. GTX260 SLI and GTX280 and GTX280 SLI provide most the consistent experience, while GTX260 3 Way SLI provides very little benefit in Crysis

Bioshock Testing

Bioshock

Performance Thoughts: The GTX260 and GTX280 do exceptionally well in 16xAA and 16xQ settings; the superior bandwidth of the GTX280 allows it to pull significantly ahead of the 9800GX2 with 16xQ enabled, while the GTX260 is able to match the 9800GX2 in raw FPS value. The super dual issue shader capabilities may also be playing a role in the performance here. SLI scaling also couldn't be better with the GTX 260 3 way SLI setup holding a significant lead over the other solutions.