38 MAXIMUMPC (^) | FEB (^08) | http://www.maximumpc.com
Although none of our subjects picked
the SLI rig as their preference across
the board (three did so for the CrossFire
machine), that didn’t stop some individu-
als from expressing strong preferences for
Nvidia in each of the three categories. “The
colors on monitor B look richer,” said anoth-
er male editor, referring to the digital photo
displayed by the SLI rig, “and I feel like I’m
seeing more texture because of that.”
While watching a segment on slash-
and-burn farming practices on the HD
DVD, many of our observers noticed that
the fl ames on the SLI rig were deep red,
while the CrossFire machine rendered the
fi re more orange. The majority of these
subjects expressed a preference for the
CrossFire rig, explaining that the orange fi re
looked more natural.
Despite all our assurances that express-
ing “no preference” was a valid opinion,
nearly everyone in our control group
insisted they could see differences in image
quality, despite the fact that three of them
were unknowingly comparing SLI to SLI,
and three others were comparing CrossFire
to CrossFire.
WHAT WE LEARNED
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so everyone’s a winner
We pride ourselves on making binary recom-
mendations, but that’s impossible in this
scenario unless we also take speed into
account. While it’s true that our test subjects
leaned slightly toward AMD’s image quality,
awarding AMD 21 wins to Nvidia’s 15, the
margin of victory in each category is just two
votes. That gives AMD a slight edge at the
$250 price point, but it leaves Nvidia unchal-
lenged at every higher segment.
THE GAME TEST
Our subjects had the strongest opinions
when it came to gaming performance,
with eight expressing a preference for ATI
CrossFire, six preferring Nvidia SLI, and only
one citing no preference for either solution.
But does it really matter? The Radeon
HD 3870 is the best GPU that AMD has
to offer today, and Nvidia has three pricier
SKUs capable of beating the 3870 to a
bloody pulp: the revamped 8800 GTS, the
8800 GTX, and the 8800 Ultra. If you’re a
hardcore gamer, would you be willing to
take a major performance hit in order to
render your game experience just a wee bit
more shiny and colorful? We didn’t think so.
THE HD VIDEO TEST
Seven of our experts preferred AMD’s
video performance, compared with fi ve
who fancied Nvidia’s; three expressed
no preference for either solution. As odd
as it sounds, many people had strong
opinions about the color of the fi re in the
video sequence we showed them. But
if you decide to go with one of Nvidia’s
faster GPUs, be aware that the 8800 GTX
and 8800 Ultra are incapable of offl oading
all the HD video-decoding chores from
the host CPU. More importantly, neither
of these cards is equipped with dual-link
DVI connectors that have HDCP support
on both links (the Radeon 3850, Radeon
3870, GeForce 8800 GT, and G92-based
8800 GTS all do), making HD DVD and
Blu-ray a no-no.
THE DIGITAL PHOTO TEST
It’s a coincidence that the same margin
of two opinions separates those who pre-
ferred AMD’s digital-photo performance
(six favoring) over that of Nvidia’s (four
favoring). We fi nd it more interesting that
fi ve people expressed no preference in this
category—more than the other two cat-
egories combined. We had predicted that
having the subjects stare at a static image
would result in nearly everyone judging
one or the other solution to be superior.
MIXED OPINIONS
Only four of our 15 evaluators gave either
AMD or Nvidia a win across the board;
of the 11 with more mixed opinions, fi ve
leaned toward Nvidia (giving the 8800
GT the nod in two out of three catego-
ries) and four leaned toward AMD (all of
whom favored its game-image quality).
Three people’s opinions were truly mixed,
expressing a preference for CrossFire in
one category, SLI in another, and no pref-
erence in a third.
THE CONTROL GROUP
We were surprised that only three of the six
people in our control group expressed no
preference between display A and display
B—and in only one category each at that.
Since they were unknowingly comparing
identical rigs, we thought nearly every-
one would admit there was no difference
between the two displays. Since most of
our subjects are professional critics, we
suspect that they felt an inherent obligation
to discern some difference between the
two displays they were staring at (despite
our assurances to the contrary).
The control group did help eliminate
the display itself as a variable: If the moni-
tors had colored our evaluators’ opinions,
the votes would have been lopsided in
favor of one or the other. Of the control
group’s 18 opinions, nine favored moni-
tor A, six favored monitor B, and three
expressed no preference.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The good news for anyone shopping for
a new videocard is that you don’t need to
sacrifi ce image quality for performance.
Based on our blind tests, the GPUs from
both AMD and Nvidia deliver similar visual
quality with games, high-defi nition video,
and digital photos.
That’s good news for AMD, too,
because now the company need only
worry about catching up on one perfor-
mance metric: frame rate. Unfortunately,
we don’t think CrossFireX is going to be a
panacea in the interim. Running four mod-
erately powerful videocards in one box will
never be as cost effective as building a rig
with one super-powerful GPU—especially
if the CPU in that box is an Intel quad core.
Sorry, Phenom.
That leaves Nvidia in the catbird
seat—again. But it won’t have the perfect
solution either until it replaces the 8800
GTX and 8800 Ultra with parts that support
HDCP on both links of their dual-link con-
nectors and that are capable offl oading all
HD video decoding from the host CPU.
MAXIMUMPC
CHALLENGE
ANOTHER
dariusz
(Dariusz)
#1