The overclocked GTX 970 SLI cards delivered just 28fps at 3840x2160 in Crysis 3, which is barely playable in our opinion. The overclock allowed them to deliver 17% more performance than the standard GTX 970 SLI setup and 75% more performance than a single non-overclocked GTX 970. Despite that improvement, once overclocked the GTX 970 SLI cards were still 10% slower than the overclocked R9 290 Crossfire setup. Taking overclocking out of the equation, the GTX 970 SLI setup was 11% slower than the R9 290 in Crossfire.
The SLI and Crossfire setups both perform exceptionally well in Crysis 3 when measuring frame time performance. The R9 290 Crossfire cards provided a 55% improvement over a single card, while the GTX 970 SLI cards were 57% faster.
This time the overclocked GTX 970 cards were 7% faster than the dual R9 290s and 137% faster than a single non-overclocked GTX 970. With an average of 64fps at 3840x2160, the overclocked GTX 970 in SLI had no trouble delivering playable performance, though neither did the overclocked R9 290 in Crossfire with an average of 60fps. Without overclocking, the GTX 970s were 11% faster than the R9 290s and 100% faster than a single GTX 970.
When it came to frame time performance, both the SLI and Crossfire setups performed well with the GTX 970 SLI cards being just 10% faster than the R9 290s.
