Version used: 1.2

Testing method: UT3Bench using the WAR-Torlan_fly timedemo, the results represent the average of three 1 minute runs

The third UE3 based game of the day, Unreal Tournament 3 is possibly the most optimized incarnation of the engine to date, although not quite the most graphically demanding. Still, it's another one of those benchmarks that's never missing from a review, so it most certainly couldn't be lacking here.

The level of AF was adjusted through UT3Bench.

Unreal Tournament 3 - AF

As expected, the level of performance is high. Enabling AF does incur a fairly hefty 13 FPS drop (going from no AF to 16X AF), but framerates remain over a very comfortable 70 FPS level. Since UT3 is framerate capped at 60 FPS (framerate cap disabled for testing purposes), that means you'll have the best possible experience when gaming with the 3870X2. QuadCF doesn't seem to bring much benefit here - shall we investigate?

Unreal Tournament 3 - Scaling

%Δ performance was calculated using the following formula:

Performance Calculation

In an unexpected way (sigh, we guess it would've been too simple an analysis if all went according to expectations), scaling is virtually non-existent, even with 16X AF enabled and 1920x1200 resolution used. Confused by this, as everyone else seems to be getting better scaling from UT3, we've asked ATi to verify our numbers. In response, they explained that, without AA, UT3 is CPU limited most of the time and one would see scaling at 2500x1600 and 16X AF. Since neither AA nor a large enough monitor were available to us, we had to accept that we won't be able to induce sufficient GPU pressure to extract benefits from going to a dual 3870X2 configuration. Sorry guys.