Intel Core i7-3960X 3-way SLI Gaming Performance Scaling
Category : 2014
Published by Hiwa Pouri on 02.05.14
In our 3-way SLI gaming performance scaling articles we're going to investigate 3-way SLI scaling factors with different CPUs and different clock speeds. In eight recent games and two theoretical benchmarks we want to find out what difference 3-way SLI makes, when we run benchmarks with the CPU at stock clocks as well as overclocked to 4.5 GHz. Let's kick off with an Intel 3960X CPU and three ASUS GTX 780 DirectCU II graphics cards and find out what the differences are going to be like.
[pagebreak]
Test Setup
Hardware
|
Mainboard |
|
| CPUs |
- Intel Core i7-3960X @ Stock (Turbo On)
- Intel Core i7-3960X @ 4.5GHz (Turbo On)
|
|
Memory |
- 4x4GB Corsair Dominator Platinum @ CL9-9-9-24 1T DDR3-1600 MHz
|
|
Graphic Cards (Driver) |
-
3 x
ASUS GeForce GTX
780 DC2 OC @ 889 MHz /
1'500 MHz
|
| Drivers |
|
| Games and OS |
- Windows 7 x64 (Up to date
on the 25/07/2013
- All
games were up to date on the 25/07/2013)
|
|
HDD |
- OCZ Technology Octane 512 GB SSD
|
PSU
|
- Seasonic Patinum SS-1000XP / 1000 Watts
|
[pagebreak]
3DMark - Fire Strike
| Overall Score |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
13'887 |
16'587 |
19.44 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
14'406 |
18'890 |
31.12 % |
| |
More is better |
| GPU Score |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
17'850 |
25'147 |
40.87 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
18'059 |
25'204 |
39.56 % |
| |
More is better |
[pagebreak]
Unigine Heaven 4.0 Extreme Preset
| Basic Preset |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
5'232 |
5'318 |
1.64 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
5'855 |
5'856 |
0.20 % |
| |
More is better |
| Extreme Preset |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
2'468 |
3'789 |
53.52 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
2'909 |
4'020 |
38.19 % |
| |
More is better |
[pagebreak]
BattleField 4
| 1280 x 1024, Low
details |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
130.20 |
148.27 |
13.89 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
153.57 |
165.39 |
7.70 % |
| |
More is better |
| 1920 x 1080, max
details, max AA, max AF |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
92.27 |
104.27 |
13.00 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
112.54 |
116.32 |
3.36 % |
| |
More is better |
[pagebreak]
BattleField 3
| 1280 x 1024, Low
details |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
160.21 |
166.87 |
4.16 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
188.21 |
190.20 |
1.06
% |
| |
More is better |
| 1920 x 1080, max
details, max AA, max AF |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
105.62 |
110.21 |
4.35 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
128.14 |
131.25 |
2.43 % |
| |
More is better |
[pagebreak]
Bioshock Infinite - Benchmark
| 1280 x 1024, Low
details |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
245.23 |
246.40 |
0.49 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
296.32 |
297.20 |
0.30 % |
| |
More is better |
| 1920 x 1080, max
details, max AA, max AF |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
213.17 |
233.36 |
9.47 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
263.13 |
285.76 |
8.60 % |
| |
More is better |
[pagebreak]
Crysis 3
| 1280 x 1024, Low
details |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
124.92 |
125.21 |
0.23 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
152.38 |
153.48 |
0.72 % |
| |
More is better |
| 1920 x 1080, max
details, max AA, max AF |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
80.20 |
89.50 |
11.60 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
91.30 |
90.10 |
- 1.13 % |
| |
More is better |
[pagebreak]
Call of Duty Black Ops 2
| 1280 x 1024, Low
details |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
365.42 |
390.60 |
6.89 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
583.28 |
606.73 |
4.02 % |
| |
More is better |
| 1920 x 1080, max
details, max AA, max AF |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
208.36 |
287.74 |
38.09 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
246.99 |
301.94 |
22.25 % |
| |
More is better |
[pagebreak]
Sleeping Dogs - Benchmark
| 1280 x 1024, Low
details |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
173.80 |
182.20 |
4.83 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
209.40 |
217.50 |
3.87 % |
| |
More is better |
| 1920 x 1080, max
details, max AA, max AF |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
63.60 |
68.90 |
8.33 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
109.0 |
114.90 |
5.41 % |
| |
More is better |
[pagebreak]
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
| 1280 x 720, Low details |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
225.55 |
264.42 |
17.23 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
292.95 |
332.82 |
13.60 % |
| |
More is better |
| 1920 x 1080, All set to
Max |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
111.58 |
129.03 |
5.64 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
142.86 |
144.39 |
1.07 % |
| |
More is better |
[pagebreak]
Metro: Last Light - Benchmark
| 1280 x 1024,
Preset low |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
132.00 |
132.50 |
0.37 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
160.52 |
161.50 |
0.61 % |
| |
More is better |
| 1920 x 1080, Preset
high |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Scaling |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
60.48 |
71.20 |
17.72 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
67.18 |
74.10 |
10.30 % |
| |
More is better |
[pagebreak]
Power
Consumption
| idle |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Index |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
115 Watt |
178 Watts |
54.78 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
209 Watt |
250 Watts |
19.61 % |
| |
less is better |
| Furmark |
SLI |
3-Way SLI |
Index |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
675 Watt |
820 Watts |
21.48 % |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
724 Watt |
955 Watts |
31.90 % |
| |
less is
better |
[pagebreak]
Scaling Factors
Games |
| 3DMark
Overall |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.19 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.31 |
| |
| 3DMark GPU
Score |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.41 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.40 |
| |
| Unigine
Heaven 4.0 Basic |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.02 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.00 |
| |
| Unigine
Heaven 4.0 Extreme |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.54 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.38 |
| |
|
BattleField 4 Low |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.14 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.08 |
| |
|
BattleField 4 High |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.13 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.03 |
| |
|
Battlefield 3 Low |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.04 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.01 |
| |
|
Battlefield 3 High |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.04 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.02 |
| |
| Bioshock
Infinite Low |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.00 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.00 |
| |
| Bioshock
Infinite High |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.09 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.09 |
| |
| Crysis 3
Low |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.00 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.01 |
| |
| Crysis 3
High |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.12 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
-1.01 |
| |
| Call of
Duty Black Ops 2 Low |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.07 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.04 |
| |
| Call of
Duty Black Ops 2 High |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.38 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.22 |
| |
| Sleeping
Dogs Low |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.05 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.04 |
| |
| Sleeping
Dogs High |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.08 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.05 |
| |
| Skyrim Low |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.17 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.14 |
| |
| Skyrim
High |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.06 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.01 |
| |
| Metro:
Last Light Low |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.00 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.01 |
| |
| Metro:
Last Light High |
| Intel Core i7-3960X Stock |
1.18 |
| Intel Core i7-3960X 4.5G |
1.10 |
| |
More is better |
[pagebreak]
Conclusion
As we already mentioned, this article marks the start of a new series, and we're going to show you test results und 3-Way-SLI scaling. Comparing to our 2-Way-SLI articles the conclusion is going to be quite a bit shorter. The reason is, that only with theoretical benchmarks we find consistent scaling and in case of games, well, they're just not optimized for 3-Way-SLI. Apparently there are no rules without exceptions.
Referring to 3DMark we see that the GPU socre is between factor 1.41 (standard clocks) and
1.40 (4.5 GHz) higher than with one card. In other words this means, that adding a third card helps improving performance by roughly 40 percent. A closer look at Unigine Heaven reveals that
in case of the basic preset scaling factor is 1.02 at stock frequencies
and 1.00 with the CPU at 4.5 GHz. When it comes to the Extreme Preset then we
see that the GPU has much more influence again (obviously), since there is much higher load on the VGA(s). In this case scaling factor with standard clocks is 1.54 and at 4.5 GHz we get 1.38.
Games on the other hand are a completely different story. Scaling factors at
low resolutions vary from 1.00 to 1.17. 1 basically means, the fps didn't change at
all and 1.17 marks a 17 percent increase in FPS. A 17 percent gain was measured using Skyrim and running the CPU at standard clocks.
Now lets focus on high resolution and high details, where the games cause quite
some load on the two graphics cards. In this case the lowest scaling factor we
found was 1.04. In fact, most of the games fps rates don't scale with adding a third graphics card. There is only Call of Duty Black Ops 2 where we've measured a significant increase, which means, the performance went up by 38 percent (a factor of 1.38).
Putting more than two graphics cards into a gaming PC is basically not going to affect frames per second in most games. There are only very few titles where triple SLI is supported. The only reasonable thing to use triple SLI for is breaking world records and benchmarking in general. Only when running theoretical benchmarks we come accross consistent scaling and with most of today's games, there is no difference at all. As for the different frequencies - stock and 4.5 GHz - they also don't account for significantly lower or higher results.
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