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Core i7 3960X with 4-Way CrossFireX HD 6970 Performance Analysis (Page 14)

By Shawn Baker from Nov 24, 2011 @ 11:43 CST

Final Thoughts

To be completely honest, the performance out of the four card setup here today was better than I thought it would be. Sure, there are some points where we don't see gains, but in others we do see some really nice gains, especially under those super intensive games like Lost Planet 2 and Aliens vs. Predator 2 which help create a really good baseline for a number of other games. If you're getting smooth FPS under these games, you should find yourself getting smooth FPS under anything that's been released in the last 12 months.

The real unsung hero out of the whole setup, though, is the Corsair AX1200. I've always praised this power supply and it's handled so many VGA setups since we've started using them, but today it handled the X79 4-Way CrossFireX setup like an absolute beast.

While our reading in the Power Consumption tests come in at a bit over 900 Watt, we actually ended up leaving our humble "Power Thingy" on for the majority of the testing to see just how high we got with the setup. As you can see below, we got some massive wattage out of the setup.


I always wondered if our Power Thingy was able to display over 1000 Watt; today it was confirmed it could with peak power draw coming in at 1064 Watt. That's a massive amount of power draw and honestly, it's one any power company is going to hate. If you intend to go on some epic long gaming session, a constant power draw of 1000 Watt is going to be killer on the bill. The strength of the power supply is a real testament to Corsair and the AX1200 and helps reaffirm my love for it.

The system is just an absolute beast, though, and you can see it in the results here today. You can see why people do go for four card setups and let's be honest, there's some real gains to be had under games that are intensive. Throw in higher and higher resolutions into the mix and it doesn't become that hard to start to justify this kind of stuff.

The X79 in the end is going to be the ultimate gamers platform. If you're looking at going down the path of three video cards you're probably going to want to be on it. If you're going down the path of four video cards, though, you need to be on it and honestly, I couldn't think of a better board to be under those cards than the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme which has proven itself so much in such a short period of time.

I suppose the only thing we need to do now is see what kind of FPS we're able to get out of the setup on our Eyefinity setup...just wait, it's coming!






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