Doom 3 is
the most advanced game to date. it takes advantage of the latest videocard
technology and pushes the processing power of the CPU to its absolute limit. At
its highest setting, Ultra quality, texture sizes pass the 500MB mark which
means even tomorrow's videocards will have a hard time running everything. The
frame rates in the game itself are locked at 60 fps so anything above that point
is wasted. Each test is run three times with the third run being
recorded.
| Doom3 |
| LQ 640x480: |
Points |
Ranking |
| Foxconn 955X7AA-8EKRS2 (955X 200/667) |
96.9 |
   |
| Foxconn 945P7AA-8EKRS2 (945P 200/667) |
94.3 |
|
| MSI P4N Diamond (NF4 SLI 200/800 GeForce 7800GTX
Single) |
97.3 |
|
| MSI P4N Diamond (NF4 SLI 200/800 GeForce 7800GTX
SLI) |
96.2 |
|
| Epox 5NVA+ SLI (NF4 SLI 200/800 GeForce 7800GTX
Single) |
96.2 |
|
| Epox 5NVA+ SLI (NF4 SLI 200/800 GeForce 7800GTX
SLI) |
94.4 |
|
| Foxconn NF4SLI7AA-8EKRS2 (NF4 SLI 200/800 7800GTX
Single) |
95.9 |
|
| Foxconn NF4SLI7AA-8EKRS2 (NF4 SLI 200/800 7800GTX
SLI) |
94.4 |
|
| Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal (NF4 SLI 200/800
7800GTX Single) |
118.6 |
   |
| Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal (NF4 SLI 200/800
7800GTX SLI) |
118.1 |
|
Doom 3 results are... well amazing! The Gigabyte
GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal completely blows the competition out of the water here! I'm
not sure why the motherboard performs so well in this game... the test was rerun
multiple times to verify the results.
Heavy On The Wallet... Quad Videocards
It took a little time to work the kinks out of nVIDIA
dual videocard SLI feature, and now consumers who require a lot of 3D power can
turn to SLI with great expectations. Many current game titles support SLI, and
you can bet virtually all future games will support multiple videocards now that
ATi has gotten into the game with its CrossFire product line.
The nForce4 SLI Intel Edition chipset is not a single
chip solution like the AMD version, yet the clever engineers at Gigabyte were
able to replace the MCP04 Southbridge with the AMD version of the nForce4 SLI
chipset and do some wonderful things as a result. With two nForce4 SLI chipsets
on Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal motherboard, 16 PCI Express lanes are
potentially available to each videocard! That is what gives the Gigabyte
motherboard its ability to run four physical PCI Express x16 videocards at a
given time.
The Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal is a big board, and
anyone contemplating this as a next purchase should definitely have a roomy
case. With the capability to run four PCI Express x16 videocards in one go,
there is no getting around the fact that computers based on the Gigabyte
GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal will generate a lot of heat. A high powered powersupply
with at least a 500W rating and 20 Amps on the 12V line is also par for the
course. We think you'll need something even beefier than that, so make sure you
have a good power supply before setting up the four videocards...
Overall we found working with the Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI
Quad Royal motherboard a pleasure. Gigabyte has always done a good job at
labeling its products, and clear indicators make installation a painless
process. Should you run into any problems, the manual does a decent job. The
layout of the board is very tight on space, but this is expected.
In terms of
performance, the Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal is not slouch. In many of the
office based tests like SYSMark 2004 and Business Winstone 2004 the GA-8N-SLI
Quad Royal came in near the top of the pack.
The Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal performed
exceptionally well in 3D tests, and was able to steal the show pretty much
everywhere. It totally destroys the competition when it comes to Doom 3! On the
overclocking front, our experiences with the Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal
motherboard were generally good - it overclocked to 245 MHz FSB. To go along
with the good FSB overclock are some pretty enthusiast friendly voltage options
in the BIOS. If you're inexperienced, be careful because Gigabyte allows for voltages high enough to damage the
hardware.
The Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal motherboard has a
retail price of around $252 CDN ($227 USD/£120 GBP), it's pricey
but then again no other motherboard on the market supports four physical PCI
Express x16 videocards. I enjoy SLI at home and drool at the power of what four
videocards can do if nVIDIA allows them to work together! Bottom line, the
Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal motherboard is feature packed, offers a whole lot
of graphics card which would be great for flight sim's, and costs a bundle. This
is a showcase motherboard, and while it won't have universal appeal, it does
what it was built to do with power and grace.
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