EVGA X58 and Tri-SLi

B

Blacklash

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 16, 2004
Messages
1,893
I've got an Evga X58 up and running. Here's a few quick benches

06 @ 1920x, 21874
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=9200118

06 @ 1920x, no HT, 24315
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=9211256

Vantage default, first try, 30133-
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dmv=589907

Image-
http://img118.imageshack.us/my.php?image=evgavantageiz7.jpg

FC2 DX10 1920x Ultra Settings Ranch Small NO HT 126.50FPS
http://img509.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fc2nohtfw4.jpg

Crysis
1920x DX10 x64 All Very High, Default install, Default config file,
Regular GPU Bench
Min FPS 39.28 Avg FPS 48.70 Max FPS 66.99
http://img252.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cr4tl6.jpg

Crysis
1920x DX10 x64 All Very High, Default install, Default config file,
Assault Harbor
Min FPS 32.84 Avg FPS 47.64 Max FPS 78.33
http://img252.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cr4ars0.jpg

Cards were @ 711|2300. I think my second Core 216 card is going to hold me back in Tri-SLi. These benches were all done with the 180.48 driver. BTW two of the cards are Core 216 and one is 192SP. I have two Core 216 cards because I ordered the vanilla EVGA GTX 260s off of Newegg and received Core 216 cards instead. My 192SP card is old.

I'm up to 3.91GHz on my CPU with turbo. I'll push it harder when I have time to toy with it more.

So far I like this mobo. It's been painless to get up and running well.
 
awesomeness...

I am going to get another GTX260 to go on my eclipse here after I get the system up... one of the reasons I wanted to use the eclipse was so I could use a pci-e 1x raid card, my pci x-fi /and/ 3x 2-slot video cards.. the eVGA has a nice slot layout also.. woot!
 
I was under the assumption that there was little to no difference between the 192s and 216s. I suspect it's not holding you back.
 
nice computer bro. I am jealous of the EVGA board. It was out of stock when I ordered my stuff so I got the Asus board
 
Bigbacon said:
I was under the assumption that there was little to no difference between the 192s and 216s. I suspect it's not holding you back.
Click to expand...

You misunderstand me. Two of my cards will do 730 on the core and one only does 711. I'm saying my system would be faster if they all did 730. That's it. My 192SP card actually does 730 fine. It's one of my Core 216s that is slower in max clock. As I said it post one, I ordered two vanilla EVGA GTX 260s and got two Core 216s instead. My old card is 192SP. As I understand it, nVidia are no longer making 192SP cores.
 
All I did was disable HT in the BIOS and my 06 score @ 1920x shot up to 24315.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=9211256

There's not much difference @ 1280x though, only 24916

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=9211336

CPU score fell and graphics went up.

FC2 DX10 1920x Ultra Settings Ranch Small NO HT 126.50FPS
http://img509.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fc2nohtfw4.jpg

While I am here.

Crysis
1920x DX10 x64 All Very High, Default install, Default config file,
Regular GPU Bench
Min FPS 39.28 Avg FPS 48.70 Max FPS 66.99
http://img252.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cr4tl6.jpg

Crysis
1920x DX10 x64 All Very High, Default install, Default config file,
Assault Harbor
Min FPS 32.84 Avg FPS 47.64 Max FPS 78.33
http://img252.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cr4ars0.jpg
 
Someone asked me for comparisons with my old system.

My old rig was a Q6600 G-0 @ 3.51GHz on an i975x mobo (BX2) with a single overclocked GTX 260 192SP @ 730|2600. Below is Crysis on it. I never ran Assault Harbor on it. I did do the regular bench though.

Crysis (Old Rig)
1920x DX10 All Very High, Default install, Default config file,
Regular GPU Bench
Min FPS 14.51 Avg FPS 21.885FPS Max FPS 25.77
http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/1199/crysisvh1920xtf6.jpg

Before I built up my SLi rig I did try a single GTX 260 Core 216 in my old rig @ 730|2500. Its FC2 results are below.

FC2 DX10 1920x Ultra Settings Ranch Small 53.01FPS
http://img514.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fc2ultra1920xyx4.jpg

Vantage on my old rig, P12006
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dmv=220084

Image-
http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/1808/van2730fm2.jpg

So for example, my Min FPS on my new rig is 17FPS faster than my Avg FPS on my old rig with the Crysis Regular GPU bench @ 1920x all VH.
 
Uncore to 20x and vcore to 1.45v was the answer for 4.0GHz.

http://img228.imageshack.us/my.php?image=40ghzqs9.jpg

New default 06 score 26030
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=9239842

Image-
http://img48.imageshack.us/my.php?image=newo6jh7.jpg

It did a little for my Vantage score.

I gained around 600 points. It's now P30732
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dmv=598308

It didn't do a thing for FC2 or Crysis though. Since it requires a full 1.45v to hold IMO not worth it considering I can do 3.91GHz on 1.33v. I might increase the voltage back to 1.35v and see how far I can go. 4.0GHz only seemed to have a good pay off in 06 @ default settings.

EDIT:

Looks like I'm good for 3.96GHz with 1.36v. I'm going to sit on that for a while and see how I like it.

I can run 189 x 21 1.36v or 193 x 21 1.45v. I think the former is a better choice on air.

I've seen this ever since I've been overclocking, you hit a plateau where it takes a large voltage increase to get beyond it for only on the order of +100MHz or less. I like to find right before that's required.
 
Thanks.

Yahoo, my EVGA X58 arrives this week!!

Hey Haxor, I wanna T-Shirt.:p
 
I'm glad you posted this. How much actual difference did the third card make in gameplay? I am most likely picking up a third 260 with xspc waterblock which matches my other 2 cards pretty cheap, but i'm wondering if there is a real performance gain or not going from 2 to 3 260s. Also, i love my evga x58. Any chance you can list out all of your voltages? I'm still running on the dummy overclock, as i have been too lazy to research the bios and go for 4ghz.
 
veedubfreak said:
I'm glad you posted this. How much actual difference did the third card make in gameplay? I am most likely picking up a third 260 with xspc waterblock which matches my other 2 cards pretty cheap, but i'm wondering if there is a real performance gain or not going from 2 to 3 260s. Also, i love my evga x58. Any chance you can list out all of your voltages? I'm still running on the dummy overclock, as i have been too lazy to research the bios and go for 4ghz.
Click to expand...

Below is a very useful guide for getting your bearings overclocking the EVGA X58 board.

http://evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=642527

All I did was experiment with the above guide to get where I am.

There's FC2 DX 10 Ultra settings with 8xAA enhanced to 16xAA from the nVidia CP, no HT.

Min FPS 66.13 Avg FPS 92.24 Max FPS 134.38
http://img208.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fc216xnohtac4.jpg

FC2 DX 10 Ultra settings with 8xAA enhanced to 16xQ AA from the nVidia CP, no HT

Min FPS 46.13 Avg FPS 80.76 Max FPS 120.28
http://img78.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fc216qnohtif8.jpg

I had HT on with slightly lowers FPS. I didn't feel like rebooting to kill it.

I did it because I already had an old GTX 260 192SP card and I realized Newegg was shipping vanilla GTX 260s with Core 216 GPUs in them that they got from EVGA. I couldn't turn down a couple of Core 216 cards for 220usd a pop with EVGA's excellent support and warranty. So basically I bought Core 216 SLi for the price of GTX 260 SLi. I already owned a GTX 260 I've had since release. I also built the Tri-SLi rig because I wanted to keep my min frames above 30FPS in all titles I play. With high mins you aren't likely to feel slow downs or hit hard stutter.I was also impressed with results I had seen around that show how Tri-SLi benefits greatly from the massive bandwidth available on X58.

Examples are below-

http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i7-multigpu-sli-crossfire-game-performance-review/11

Tri-SLi is useful @ 1920x if you want to run AA like 16xQ. It is also good for extremely demanding titles like Crysis all VH @ said res. Most of the time overclocked GTX 260 SLi will get it done for you. The only time it may not is if you want to run 16xQ AA in some titles.

I play a lot of AoC with 16xQ AA|16xAF all enabled and all maxed. I don't see under 42FPS.

This rig I just built is going to be my last build for a while so I went ahead and bought what I wished. I may end up buying DX 11 cards a few months after they are released and these should last me a while. The core of my system will stay as is. I don't feel two Core 216 cards for 440usd with EVGA's support and warranty was a rip off. I feel even better about them because they both do 711|2300 perfectly stable.

Honestly, I've always wanted to give Tri-SLi a whirl and not with cards that cost 600usd a pop. Price vs performance I feel the GTX 260s are worth it, particularly since now most all of them are sporting Core 216 GPUs. No, I wouldn't put Tri-SLi on anything smaller than a 1920x1200 monitor.

I'm satisfied with a 300usd quad core that does 3.96GHz on air and two Core 216 cards that do 711]2300 for 440usd. As I said, I already had a GTX 260 that can do the same clocks. I'm very happy with my new build, and this SilverStone case is excellent for keeping it all cool on air.

Tri-SLi idle temps in my SilverStone case. IMO they're fairly good considering the cards are right on top of one another.



Load is 62-68C in demanding games with 70% fan speed. I thought heat might be an issue and I'm happy to say it isn't.
 
AthlonXP said:
Pics of your rig when done man!
Click to expand...

No problem. Should be up and running by the end of the week if the deliveries are on schedule..............

I had to run all over to find the parts:

i7920 from TankGuys (good price there)
EVGA X58 SLI from mwave
Corsair Dominators 6GB 1600 from TigerDirect

I usually one stop shop from the egg, but they were out of the board and the memory and I couldn't stand to wait anymore. I was going to try to hold out until after Christmas......:eek:

I'll take a picture of my t-shirt for you......harharhar;) (if there are any left, they only have 500)
I plan to go triple SLi on this board after Christmas......I used to have a 680i board with three 8800 GTXs and it was very nice......right now I have the ol' ASUS 780i and Sli'd 280s.
 
Thanks for the link to the guide, i'll check it out later. Also, hey russian, i want a shirt too! Heh look up my account and see how many evga items i have registered ><
 
OP : I've got a 920 @ 3.8GHz and 2x 4870x2's in CFX . . . so why are my scores on Vantage soooooo much lower?

I get 23225 GPU and 23189 CPU (P23216) when I run the Performance test (1280x1024). Most of my subscores are the same (or better) EXCEPT for CPU TEST 2.

GPU test 1 = 64.69 (yours = 78.06)
GPU test 2 = 71.49 (78.45)

CPU test 1 = 3254.35 (3303.94)
CPU test 2 = 29.59 (141.82)

Feature Test 1 = 3068.81 (1892.16)
Feature 2 = 21.27 (18.91)
Feature 3 = 53.26 (53.26)
Feature 4 = 12.22 (24.80)
Feature 5 = 37.07 (38.89)
Feature 6 = 212.06 (102.60)

I can understand the higher GPU score since you're going TRI-SLI but how in the world is your GPU score all the way up to 48913!?!?! The HUGE difference I see is in the CPU Test 2 - which I think is the physics stuff (which I think heavily favors the nVidia cards). Is this the where the difference comes from or ??? Very surprising!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top