MSI NX8800GTX Review and Mixed-Vendor SLI - Page 9 of 9
Review By Mike Chambers - January 23, 2007
NWN2 GAMEPLAY PERFORMANCE
Early in the tutorial of Neverwinter Nights 2, the player is greeted with the following graphics-rich outdoor scenery in West Harbor. In this particular scene, which was rendered at 2560x1600 with 2x MSAA and every in-game graphics setting enabled, the frame rate was 24 frames per second using SLI.
Neverwinter Nights 2
Click Image to Enlarge - 2560x1600 - 2x MSAA
Neverwinter Nights 2 gameplay performance was tested following the tutorial when the town is under attack and your character is given the task of rounding round up the West Harbor militia. The following screenshot is from a scene in the walkthrough and an MPEG-1 video clip of the walkthrough is also available for viewing here (~ 27 MB).
Neverwinter Nights 2
Click Image to Enlarge - 2560x1600 - 2x MSAA
With all in-game graphics options enabled, our mixed-vendor SLI configuration delivered playable results with 2x MSAA enabled at 2560x1600. SLI was effective in Neverwinter Nights 2 as the addition of a second GPU nearly doubled the performance over a single GPU configuration, which delivered a minimum of 12 fps and an average of 18 fps.
Neverwinter Nights 2 Performance
Neverwinter Nights 2 offers many tweakable graphics settings. With water special effects disabled and shadow quality lowered to medium, a 27% increase in the average frame rate was realized. With these settings, the minimum frame rate in the walkthrough rose to 27 fps and the average frame rate rose to 43.9 fps.
Other Titles
Throughout the course of this review, which spanned two months, I also tested other titles at the Dell 3007WFP's native resolution of 2560x1600. The following table lists the settings that were used while testing each title with a mixed-vendor SLI configuration.
Other Games Tested
CONCLUSION
High-end gaming on the PC has never been better and the MSI NX8800GTX delivers the goods to provide the best gaming experience possible. The GeForce 8800 Series was designed with a unified shader architecture and as most new technology there are a few wrinkles that NVIDIA continues to iron out. Our Summary of GeForce 8800 Game Issues discussion is a prime example, but at the same time provides valuable solutions from the community to correct a variety of problems.
The high resolution screenshots that are scattered throughout this review are a testament to the image quality that the MSI NX8800GTX is capable of delivering. MSI continues to offer solid products at competetive prices, which is one reason they are able to maintain a loyal customer base.
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