Splinter Cell: Conviction Performance In-depth

Testing Methodology & IQ Comparison

In total we tested 18 graphics card configurations using both ATI and Nvidia chips that ranged from the uber expensive models to budget-minded offerings. We tested using high (with 4xAA forced), medium and low quality presets.

The latest official drivers were used for all graphics cards, which saw Crossfire working under certain conditions, while SLI appears to be broken.

For measuring frame rates we relied on Fraps, where we recorded a minute of gameplay from the first level. The Intel Core i7 920 processor was overclocked to 3.7GHz in an attempt to remove any CPU bottlenecks that could influence high-end graphics cards scores.

Finally, we know that many of you will be interested in CPU scaling performance as well, and therefore we down-clocked the Core i7 920 to see what kind of impact this has on performance when using a Radeon HD 5870 graphics card with maximum in-game quality settings. Additionally, we have also run similar tests using the Core i5 750, Core i3 540, Core 2 Quad Q6600, Core 2 Duo E8500 Phenom II X6 1090T, Phenom II X4 965, Phenom II X2 555 and Athlon II X4 635 processors.

We will be looking for an average of 60fps for stutter-free gameplay.