Tri-SLI benchmarked

[Azza]

The German print and online magazine PC Games Hardware had the opportunity to bench Nvidia's tripple-SLI. The benchmarks have been done using Crysis and some other games. Unfortunately a unreleased Crysis build with number 5837 was used which seems to be optimized for triple-SLI. This new patch will be publicy available in a couple days.

So far only te 8800 GTX and 8800 Ultra are capable of running triple-SLI. What else is needed to run triple-SLI?

- 3 Geforce 8800 GTX or Ultra cards
- a 3-way-SLI_Connectorboard (or as a alternative: 2 very short and 1 very long SLI-bridge)
- a mainboard with 3 PCI-E-x16-slots (680i or the upcoming 7x0i)
- the right Forceware driver (in this case 169.18 was used)
- a PSU that is strong enough to provide enough juice =)

Nvidia recommends using at least a 1,100W PSU. The Thermaltake Topower that was used in the test was really stressed. The kill-a-watt-device showed a total power consumption of 819W.

The benchmarks were done with a system that Nvidia provided. It's specs are:

CPU: Core 2 Quad Q6850 @ 3000 MHz (333x9)
Board: Asus P5N32-E SLI with Nforce 680i-Chipsatz
RAM: 2x1,024 MiByte Corsair Dominator
OS: Vista 32 Bit (Enterprise Edition)

As tests were used:
Tests:
• Crysis Build 3857, PCGH-Ice-Benchmark
• Unreal Tournament 3, PCGH-vCTF-Suspense-Benchmark
• Fear v1.08, int. performance-test
• Company of Heroes, int. performance-test

VGA: 3x XFX Geforce 8800 Ultra (612/1,512/1,080 MHz)
Driver: Forceware 169.18

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Pics

[TooNice]

Ooh, double digits minimum frame rate on Crysis/Very High/1900x1200

Well, it's moderately interesting to see what we can get with highly reduced financial constraints. And I have to say that it scales better than I had expected.

Still, I'd be more interested to see the next gen high end solution. It's been about a year since the 8800GTX has been released, and we've not seen a refresh for it.

[staffsMike]

So that's showing that even a £1200 graphics setup won't run crysis perfectly smoothly.. fun lol

[[GSV]Trig]

Hmmm, gfx setup cost = PSU wattage

[Fraz]

bonkers. That's got to be more trouble + expense than it's ever going to be worth.

Interesting that triple ultra rig is only using ~700 Watts, assuming that PSU is 85% efficient.

[blockgorilla]

That case had to be rediculously hot. three big cards like that and them stretching to put crysis out at those levels. what kind of real world setting did they do the test in. i would have to refridgerate my case to run at those levels

[blockgorilla]

assuming the same scalability for four card sli, the pattern (the increase in fps over the number of grafics cards seems to be about + one/third) they really need to do some more work to get these multi-card setup's running smoother. the cost benefit to this setup is absolutely rediculous to all but the most priviledged of builders.

[directhex]

TWO pcie power connectors per card? O_o

[arthurleung]

That is such a waste of electricity :S

[Anubis386]

All I can say is ... wow .. I wish I had enough £$£$ to do that .. Now i'm just waiting for some sight to post pics of Watercooled Tri-SLI .. that would look awesome ..

[moogle]

That is such a waste of electricity :S

you could try your power meter on them and find out

[ScottY_]

Starved for air much? Temps would be sky high i reckon.

[shaithis]

Great investment ready for the winter

[RoBe]

there's a 3-way sli article on bit-tech that might be of interest
bit-tech.net | First Look: Nvidia 3-way SLI on nForce 680i - Introduction

[Pob255]

Great investment ready for the winter

If you're going to spend that kind of cash, water cool it, do it so each is seperately fed by a differnt coloured water and you'll have a case looking like a mad proffessors chemistry lab.

[moogle]

If you're going to spend that kind of cash, water cool it, do it so each is seperately fed by a differnt coloured water and you'll have a case looking like a mad proffessors chemistry lab.

better still, run your central heating through it



24/7 central heating