Wednesday, November 14th 2007
3-way SLI Tested on nForce 790i SLI Board
As NVIDIA is preparing to launch 3-way SLI technology soon, it's time for the first "underground" scores to emerge. Initial testing results from the 3-way SLI configuration made up of C73 reference board (nForce 790i SLI) with 3x GeForce 8800 Ultra cards and a Core 2 Duo E6750 show that the performance improvement between 2-way and 3-way SLI in 3DMark06 at 1920x1440 resolution (8 sample AA with 16x AA Quality and 16x AF) is 26%. Without AA and AF, the performance boost is only 5.6%. Notice that Forceware 167.10 Vista beta drivers were used for 3-way SLI. NVIDIA is still working on final 3-way SLI drivers, that should improve performance.
Source:
VR-Zone
23 Comments on 3-way SLI Tested on nForce 790i SLI Board
I guess benchmarking is a sport of its own. Buy, tune, and compete. But I'll never understand I guess.
I'm happy with ungodly FPS in CS:Source, and thats what my GTX is for. Leave the tri-SLi for those with $1k to blow for the benchies.
I would have to agree with Atnevon, it does not sense for the average PC gamer to pay so much for minor improvements... but I sure am glad people strive for the highest scores because it is fun to see just how far modern technology can be pushed. Hmmm... using the car analogy, would that make the 3-way SLI similar to putting 3 Hummer engines into one vehicle? :laugh: (That would be some SCARY power... but you would not be able to travel far from the gas station.)
Don't get me wrong about SLi. Its a way to get a bit more juice out of your existing card. For example, you get 1, and ONLY one 8800 GT, then in like a year in a half or si, when the price drops down to like 200 or lower, you can pop one in instead of getting the top of the line_______(insert new GPU name here). I appreciate the technology to be able to give users more control over their hardware capibilities. However, outside of that, it just seems to impractical. Hell, I only got an 8800GTX because insurance covered it. Outside of that, I would have gotten an 7800 or so.
Technology advancement=cool, (practicality>budget) however is what really turns out.
they want you to come buy their shit.
Can't even run Crysis at high resolution at constant >30+ FPS (never mind 60FPS) because your brand new £200 card sucks?
Solution: add another crap card, or two even!
The market for SLI/CF is extremely limited to <1% of gamers.
People want real next generation graphics card, not rehashes of the same 8800GTX/X2900XT crap.
Best to wait and see what nVidia's 9800 and ATI's next gen. cards can do rather than this marketing nonsense.
SeriouslyLameIdiots/CrapFramerates or whatever they stand for, not much difference really.
I wonder how many of the above opinions would change if they, say, won a tri sli system... haahaaa.
Did I say it was shit??? oh I meant its the shit... TRI SLI FTW... haahaa :p
I think this multi gpu is the way that technology is going... they can only shink the die size so much, fair enough it will over time shrink, but maybe they just can't do it fast enough (eg. Crysis).... And with the GTX and more so the 2900XT's power req's going thru the roof it can only make sense to run more processors in parallel...
This I believe is the same reason we have Quad core cpu's rather than a 15ghz p4....
I for one loved having a crossfire setup, just because, no reason really just because I could look down in there and see 2 gfx cards.... :)
What would you spend your $700 on, an ultra or 2 GT's.... A 2900XT or 2 3870's....
just my opinion...
u say that the best we can really do shrink die size, well i thk nvidia should try to bring a card out with say a 512-bit bus with 1GB or 512mb memory and then maybe 192 stream proc just an idea.
The likes of Intel are still milking their revamped C2D architecture in the form on the Penryn Wolfdale/Yorkfield chips literally only a few months before Nehalem is released, the new architecture with Intel's integrated memory controller!
nVidia is basically adapting the same strategy Intel used, milk the consumers for all their cash this xmas with thier 8800GTS/GTX revamps, before releasing their proper next gen. card almost immediately a month or two after.
another example is the 8800GT to the HD3870 they both have 256-bit bus yet the 8800GT does better.