Benchmarks: Aliens vs. Predator, Mass Effect 2

For testing Aliens vs. Predator we used the highly demanding custom DX11 benchmark. We played through a test scene in the same sequence every time for accurate results. The maximum possible visual quality settings were enabled along with 4xAA/16xAF.

Here we see that SLI scales very well in Aliens vs. Predator. The GeForce GTX 460 SLI configuration delivered 81% better performance than a single board. This impressive gain meant that at 1920x1200 the GTX 460 SLI cards were a whopping 29% faster than the GeForce GTX 480 and 36% faster than the Radeon HD 5870.

The GTX 460 SLI config was 13% slower than the dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970 at 1920x1200, but overclocking the GeForce cards increased the average frame rate from 49fps to 59fps putting them in front. An impressive result that had the SLI cards a mere 5fps behind than a pair of Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire cards.

Mass Effect 2

For testing with Mass Effect 2 we relied on Fraps, recording 60 seconds of gameplay from the level "Lazarus Research Station". Best in-game visual quality settings with 4xAA/16xAF enabled were used.

Mass Effect 2 is another game that saw impressive performance gains when adding a second GeForce card. With an average of 50fps at 1920x1200 adding a second card boosted performance by 80%. The GTX 460 SLI cards were faster than a single GeForce GTX 480 by a 22% margin and than the Radeon HD 5870 by a 15% margin.

The overclocked GeForce GTX 460 SLI configuration scaled 96% going from a single overclocked GeForce GTX 460 with an average frame rate of 106fps.