3 Way SLI - MultiCard setups Bah Humbug

Brent_Justice said:
Pretty much the only game that will really benefit with such a setup though is Crysis, every other game runs very well with a single Ultra (or SLI-2 card for 2560x1600). Take for example COD 4, brand new game, looks really great, plays well at 19x12 4X AA, max in-game settings on a single GTX.
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QFT...I dont know why Crysis is being thrown around for a reason of "treSLI"(dibs on the copyright for the name..:))..The developers have said 18 months we will have HW to run this game ma..Think Farcry..COD4 ran beautifully on my rig sig(and that was on my C2D)..I guess if you have the $$ then go for it..Me,wake me up when the 9xxx gets here..
 
It makes sense from a business perspective that they only want to make a single card and then have you buy multiple cards rather than spend the time/money to produce a faster card that not as many people will buy.

Like many reviewers have said, they make the most money from mid->low end cards not on the high end ones. So if they just have to mass produce one card that everyone can use, and have you buy 2-4 of them its cheaper for them and you get your faster performance.

I don't agree with it, but it looks like that might be where we are heading :(
 
jmackay said:
I don't agree with it, but it looks like that might be where we are heading :(
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Especially if more and more games come out in the Crysis mold.

It will be close to impossible to run them at res/fps people would like, which in turn drives people to buy more of those mid-range cards.
 
I think Alan Wake and other titles will push the graphical boundaries on the PC in the coming year.Its only common sense that new titles will be more and more demanding GPU wise.Crysis is nothing new in that regard.


I really like this qoute from the news post :

It is my opinion that NVIDIA is sandbagging GPU releases because AMD is not giving them competition
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^No holds barred opinions^.What I would love to know,has Nvidia read his response,and have they responded to the above part ? :D I mean Kyle is right on the money about this,Nvidia is holding back bigtime right now with new GPU product releases.

We are getting great cards,but ultimately they are rehashed leftovers... IMHO.Where is G100 ?? Like I said the other day,Nvidia is on cruise control,and no more....After the
GTX,they turned it on,and have been coasting since.
 
Actually I think that three-way-SLI is not effective in the e-penis battle since quad systems have already been showcased. Eventhough three-way-SLI with 8800GTX's will most probably be faster than quad-crossfireX with HD3870's, it takes *analysis* to show that 3 is better than 4. Analysis doesn't win pissing contests.

So really, to win the e-penis contest, Nvidia needed to release Penta-SLI... because 5 is *obviously* better than 4.

Anyways, needing a 240V two phase (in the US and Canada) appliance power plug to supply juice to the penta-SLI rig would only add to its testosterone fueled awesomeness. ;)
 
It would be attractive to me, a casual gamer, if:

1. While doing low-end 2D work, you could power-down the higher end cards to save energy. (Can you do that already?)
2. You can mix cards from the same family. I know from this thread lower-end cards don't have multi-way SLI connectors, but if they did, you could have, as an example, an 8600GT and an 8800GT working together, plus a 3rd slot available for when you have extra money, or when a new game comes out that really would take advantage of a 3rd card. I love commas. :)
 
Wasn't there some rumors or development of two GPU's on one PCB? If ATI or Nvidia does that then I can't see what need there would be for three or four cards.?.?.?

With two cards you could get four GPU's going. If the dual GPU on PCB is slated then this could be a moot point? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
 
I'll keep this short and sweet - if Nvidia felt like no body was going to buy 3 way SLI, they wouldn't have made it. Nvidia, just like any other company, wants profits. They want to sell their product. They're not going to make something that's going to subtract from their profit.

I know a lot of you guys think 3-way SLI is a waste of money, but let's be real here. Nvidia and ATI are both aimming at one particular demograph - the young affluent white male demograph. They market their flagship products to young guys fresh out of college that are willing to drop a few thou on a computer. YOU may think a few thousand on a computer is insane, but maybe a lawyer making $120,000 a year doesn't. A young college grad with a high paying job, no wife, no kids, has a lot of expendable cash.
 
quick question, why only 3 way for nvidia while amd has quadfire so to speak? Does that mean nvidia can't scale it properly beyond 3?
 
Kyle, please communicate to Nvidia that as long as they restrict SLI to Nvidia chipset mobos only, they are losing sales. Many people are simply not going to buy an Nvidia chipset socket 775 mobo.
 
Disclaimer/Full Disclosure: Nvidia Fanboy here. I don't like SLI. I imagine the same problems most likely plague crossfire as well, but I used SLI for a couple of days with my friends card while he was waiting for the rest of his computer to arrive. We had GeForce 7950GT 512's, and I ran them in XP, since I didn't even want to try vista. So, long story short, I had problems with almost every game I tried. FEAR ran fine, HL2 ran fine. That's about it.

Even UT2004 was having issues, and I love how stable that game usually is. BSOD every time I tried to run it. I was using the latest drivers, and was not that impressed. Oblivion had artifacts all over. I'm not saying my experience was anywhere near complete, but the couple of days I did have were not very pleasant and involved lots of fruitless troubleshooting. And the other thing, at least with the 7950--> DX10 gen switch, was that at that point, I could get another 7950 for about $200.

Then I'd have to deal with all those troubleshooting issues, and I would still be nowhere near the performance of a single 8800, which suddenly looked a much better value. Just me $0.02, I think that if companies focused more on making the most of a single card, we'd all be better off. Maybe they should start work on dual core GPU's. :) Only half joking on that one, that'd be badass to make a dual core GPU to go with the dual and quad core CPUs we're getting these days.
 
There is at least one positive resulting from these solutions (Triple SLI and CrossfireX) that I don't think people can deny. In the (near) future I think video cards will go the way of CPU's and go multi-core (see R700). The information gained now by Nvidia/AMD with these platforms could be extremely helpful on later designs. I'm glad Nivdia and AMD are at least experimenting in this field. Although I doubt many will buy into Triple SLI and CrossfireX now, perhaps in the future they will be being into it one way or another.
 
dagon11985 said:
I'll keep this short and sweet - if Nvidia felt like no body was going to buy 3 way SLI, they wouldn't have made it. Nvidia, just like any other company, wants profits. They want to sell their product. They're not going to make something that's going to subtract from their profit.

I know a lot of you guys think 3-way SLI is a waste of money, but let's be real here. Nvidia and ATI are both aimming at one particular demograph - the young affluent white male demograph. They market their flagship products to young guys fresh out of college that are willing to drop a few thou on a computer. YOU may think a few thousand on a computer is insane, but maybe a lawyer making $120,000 a year doesn't. A young college grad with a high paying job, no wife, no kids, has a lot of expendable cash.
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You're always going to have someone buy it. Bragging rights. "Our setup is the fastest".
 
Fuzzy Logik said:
SLI is for retards with big pockets... reminds me of the saying, "A fool and his money are soon parted".

I can see the Nvidia marketing team:

"Hey let's make graphics cards cost the cost of a brand new pc alone."
"Great idea!"

"Oh, now what... we need to scam more money out of people because that's the only way to afford luxuries in this day and age as a business"

"I GOT IT! LETS MAKE IT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE TO USE TWO!!!"
*motherboard manufacturers are like "sure, fug it, why not"

"OMG WHAT MARKETING GENIUS!"

Then I read Hardocp....

NOW THREE WAY SLI?!?!!?

BWUAAHAHAH!!! The morons will buy it too!

I remember the QUAD SLI stuff from back in the day and I just shook my head.

SLI is the most worthless waste of money I could imagine when purchasing a new PC component for a system.

I'll bet you half of the SLI users out there if not more don't even have a 10k rpm drive or are running at 1 GB of memory versus 2 or 4.

SLI should stand for Stupid Loser Interface.

IF you need SLI to own, you probably suck ass anyways, spending another 500 dollars isn't going to pixel your way into the lead on FPS games.
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One word: Jealousy.

And, for the record, I'm not sure how you get away with calling people "retards" "stupid losers" "fools" and "morons". . . but I suspect you won't get away with it much longer if you keep it up.

Regardless, I suspect you feel such animosity towards those who choose to spend more than you because in reality, you would spend that much too for the performance were you (a) able to afford it yourself or (b) better informed about the actual performance increase possible with SLi or (c) both.
 
Kowan said:
You're always going to have someone buy it. Bragging rights. "Our setup is the fastest".
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The day I buy top-end equipment merely because I want to impress nerds on the internet is the day I put a bullet in my own head. :)

Some of us just like knowing that we're enjoying our entertainment at the highest possible quality level. I'm the same way with my home theater system. I don't like to sit there and wonder how good it would have looked if I'd only spent a couple hundred more for the "next tier" of performance. Instead, I do research and figure out what the best is and what I can afford, and then I buy the best I possibly can. For computers, that usually equates to an SLi system.
 
Well I kinda dont like the fact H is deciding what I "need" to hear about. Beyond just the cool factor it has practical applications. Everyone saying its to much money etc just has to think of things in perspective. I mean hell I spend around 800 a month on my car alone (Lexus IS350) which over the years is a absurd amount of money but I can afford it. Just guessing it would cost about 3k to put together one of these monster systems and its really not much if its going to last a bit and provide the best gaming performance out there. It applies to a select group of people who have cash to burn. I can tell ya one thing if I was a serious gamer anymore and had a 30 inch monitor you can bet your ass id have a triple sli setup.
 
Maybe nvidia needs to fix up their shoddy m/board chipsets (which have a habit of exploding or eating RAM/HDD/s) before they consider pushing sli/tri-sli. I personally will not touch sli unless I can use it on an intel chipset.
 
Yes, a 1000w will be the recommended PSU for Ultra Tri-SLI.
I was mistaken. It looks like Nvidia recommends at least a 1100w for the system they tested the Tri in.
 
Methadras said:
Nvidia should have just left things alone and not gone in this direction. It's pointless and contrived and I really don't understand how upper management lets the marketing tards get away with this kind of stuff. Nvidia is a good company that designs and outsource manufactures good video cards. Why they would go in this 'enthusiast' direction is beyond me.
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It is really the only innovation they have to add to their chipset line. Tri-SLI is more about motherboards than it truly is about GPUs.

Edit: I should make this a bit more clear..... ESA technology is coming, but it is more of an NVIDIA "platform" feature rather than a chipset feature.
 
Wait a sec here- If my concern is performance- and I can afford it, and SLI is the fastest thing out there, then I will buy it- 'nuff said. Pretty much at the point I want the fastest thing out there and I can afford it, I don't care about value. Take the fastest card, put three of them in your case,a nd have something that is faster than two of the fastest cards- ok, I'm in.

I don't like the idea of NVIDIA holding back better chips to just sell two or three cards though. Wasn't this what AMD stopped with intel a few years ago?
 
Dan_D said:
It is quite simple. Guys like me who buy the fastest configuration possible most of the time will buy three cards instead of two when thier next generation parts are released. So basically they've probably sold three cards to most people who embrace SLI and always have. NVIDIA has been selling me high end cards two at a time for a few years now. So now they want to sell me three at a time.
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I understand that you are on the bleeding edge of speed when it comes to video output, however, you are also in the 99.5 percentile of those that can afford this type of setup. Granted, I understand that I this will ultimately devolve into a class warfare, rich guy/poor guy type of discussion (I hope not), but for the most part you have two things going against you on these types of purchases. The first is software, still bloated, still behind in capabilities to take on such hardware horsepower and if they do, they invariably don't do it it well. Also, a hardware solution of this type doesn't force software developers to optimize and debloat their software, so instead they cram their stuff to fit the fastest hardware and I think in a lot of ways, a guy like you promotes that unwittingly and unwillingly.

The second is die shrink and multicore. This is coming, but to fill in the revenue gap and the need for a company like Nvidia to continuously pump out offerings, even when they aren't necessary delays what should be out now. Don't believe me? Look at the offerings that ATI is putting out and they were bought be AMD and yet you still don't see anything they have promised to do, die shrink or multicore. Instead, these two video companies play keeping up with the joneses with Nvidia clearly out front. However for them to offer 3 way sli is pointless and outside of you saying that you would do it stay within the cone of speed doesn't do a thing for the industry as a whole. It doesn't better it and it doesn't force it to innovate. Nvidia has a chance to finally do something creative and innovative to remain the graphics leader while reducing their costs and make their offerings to their customers cheaper. But this isn't the way to do it. It would be better for them to really hammer on their R&D and crank out something great. Not this. This is marketing pablum.
 
bigk said:
You have to understand Video Cards are for the most part an 'enthusiast' product.

How many Soccer Moms you see installing a 8800GT in their rig? If they even had a "rig".

I do understand your premise though(or at least I think I do) in that Nvidia had stayed out of the gimmicky side of doing business in producing their products.
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i do understand it and I've said so as much that this is an 'enthusiast' offering. And soccer moms have kids who install 8800 GT's in their rigs for them. This is a marketing gimmick plain and simple and just makes them look clownish.
 
iansilv said:
Wait a sec here- If my concern is performance- and I can afford it, and SLI is the fastest thing out there, then I will buy it- 'nuff said. Pretty much at the point I want the fastest thing out there and I can afford it, I don't care about value. Take the fastest card, put three of them in your case,a nd have something that is faster than two of the fastest cards- ok, I'm in.

I don't like the idea of NVIDIA holding back better chips to just sell two or three cards though. Wasn't this what MAD stopped with intel a few years ago?
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Oh there will be some people that buy it, I do not doubt that, but it will be a fraction of the fraction of SLI users.

Yeah, NVIDIA goes a year without a true refresh....no high end competition from ATI, coinkydink.
 
It comes down to priorities. I'm single, own my house, have no bills and make a decent wage. Tri-SLI though I could easily afford it, is not something I feel I "need" to enjoy gaming as I see it. Others will see it as a way to boost their enjoyment.

As Kyle said,
"Oh there will be some people that buy it, I do not doubt that, but it will be a fraction of the fraction of SLI users."
 
Wasn't their talk of Tri-SLi long before it was known that ATi would be dropping the ball for over a year and failing to give nvidia any real competition?

I'm just not totally convinced that nvidia is delaying their parts merely because ATi is blowing it. Isn't it just as likely that nvidia outdid themselves with the 8800 and are now finding themselves struggling to beat their own best just like ATi? Indeed, if nvidia could release their "monster" top-tier card now or a few months ago, wouldn't it make just as much sense for them to really "pour it on" and bury ATi by two or more generations if they really could do so? There would be benefits for nvidia in doing this, both short-term and (especially) long-term.

In fact, what if nvidia's next part turns out to be a dud? Will everyone alleging that nvidia was intentionally delaying their performance monster in order to prolong the 8800GTX/Ultra's reign at the top acknowledge that there never was a "performance monster" and that nvidia was having trouble topping it just like everyone else?

I'm not totally adverse to the idea that nvidia may be "dogging it" a bit because they have no pressure from ATi. But the way we're twisting every story into yet another example of the "nvidia is screwing us because ATi sucks" angle is getting a bit tired. For all we know, nvidia is having yield problems, or design problems, or. . . anything. . . heck, their new card may not be what everyone is hoping for given the precedent set by the 8x00 series. But I'm just having a hard time getting upset because nvidia isn't releasing things according to my timetable. And I guess I just don't see any nefarious motives there.

I generally don't go in for conspiracy theories, but this looks like more angst and anger directed at anything nvidia does other than release the new top-tier part because certain types can't seem to handle the fact that companies sometimes release items other than what they want now.
 
Tri SLI? I could care less. I currently consider the Nvidia based mother boards for Intel cpu's to be shit compared to the Intel's. Let SLI be used on Intel chip sets and I might give it a try.

Don't look at it as a lost chip set sale. Look at it as a gained high margin graphics card sale. In my case you already lost the chip set sale. All you have to do to get the aforementioned graphics card sale is release a driver that allows SLI on Intel chip sets.

endpreachybitchyrant
 
won't address the rest of your post because I agree with it. Cost is a non-issue for some and those who can afford such a setup with relative ease won't think about the money as much as the enjoyment they'll get out of such a machine. I don't really care about the cost either for the most part.

I will however address the first comment. The [H], Anandtech, Toms Hardware Guide and every other hardware review website has staff or an owner, CEO, Editor or whatever that decides what you need to hear about and what you don't. They need to decide what content to develope in order to make their site successful. Hardware review sites are businesses like any other. Why spend $4,000 producing an article that only 3% of your readership will be interested in? It doesn't make sense in that context does it? Especially when a particular site doesn't bend to the will of advertisers (or others) it limits what a site can produce content wise. If you have to decide between a review that only 3% of your readership will be interested in that costs $4,000 and a Radeon 3870 roundup that costs about the same, which would you choose to go with? Obviously you want to make your site appeal to the most people possible.

Like it or not reviews cost money to write. Because of that, I assure you that all sites pick and choose what they'll concentrate on and what they think the readership of thier site wants to see the most. They'll always pick based on that criteria.
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Exactly. It's just you rarely hear about it. Kyle was good enough to post his view and start this thread to see if he read his viewers "heartbeat" correctly.
 
Dunno why they bothered, i remember some quad sli articles and crossfired x1900's were smacking it about in a lot of the tests performed. Now were downscaling (or are we) to three full sized cards. This is what the marketplace will be like if ati ever does go under, zero innovation, just take what you have fuck around with it some more and slap a higher price tag on it and it will sell as long as it increases peoples 3d mark scores by ooh anything over 5 points?

Its amazing that at a time where crysis is ass raping most peoples systems at a high res theres really no single card capable of playing it properly, i just wonder would the true next gen cards from ati and nvidia be around now if ati hadn't dicked around with the 2900 for so long.

Not a thread about ati but they need to do their next part and do it well, this business of everytime they bring out a new core delays hapenning left and right (or shitty availability when it does finally come out) is just not good for the consumer.
 
Paul_Johnson said:
Are you liking that ToughPower?

I loved reviewing that one.
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I like it. Still going strong, stable voltages and I haven't had any issues with it. It powers my rig (watercooling included) with power to spare.
 
Triple SLI's about as close to useless as you can get with video cards. I mean not only do very few people buy more than 1 card, but only a small percentage of THOSE people might buy a third one...and when we'll see how a second card adds X% more performance and a third adds way less, it'll feel even more useless considering the ton of money you'd need to spend.

The only upside to all this is that if hardware doesn't get faster for 1-2 years, games will stabilize more (thanks majority of developers who switched to making console games and crappy ports), they won't be any more demanding than the last, and more people will be able to play them maxed out.

I have to say, it's a great feeling to know that I've bought an 8800GT for $250 and I can play just about all new games (except Crysis) maxed out at 1600x1200 with great framerates. I don't remember the last time I bought a card for under $500 that could play games that came out that same month at those settings.

With that said, I'm a PC gamer, not a console gamer, so I expect some damn innovation every 6 months to a year - not a stagnating industry.
 
Wow, and I thought regular SLI was excessively expensive...;)

It's a shame that the video card market has stalled like it has...
On one hand, my inner graphics whore is screaming, "Alright already! Out with the 9800's, nvidia!" Deep down though, I'm actually very grateful that they're biding their time (or having trouble topping the 8800, whichever it may be). The last thing we need in the long run is for nvidia to outright put ATI out of business and leave us without any competition at all.
 
1. For the person near the beginning that made the smart ass remark about how KYLE was trying to speak for everyone here:

For one thing He did nothing of the sort, and for another if he DID big freakin' deal. If anyone has the RIGHT to speak for the enthusiast community he does, and he's proven it by piloting one of the top enthusiast targeted sources of information on the internet for close to 10 years now

2. TRI SLI? Big fucking deal.... here's an idea nVidia... why not get TWO WAY SLI working halfway decent across the board. I'm getting pretty pissed lately at how the left hand doesn't seem to know what the right hand is doing over there. They keep coming up with clever sounding shit that doesn't work right half the time:

  • SLI - Worked better in the 3dfx days before nVidia swiped it up and began implimenting it. I swear it seems like SLI is trouble for more titles than it actually brings benefit to.
  • nTune - What was supposed to be a new and intuitive way of tweaking, tuning, and overclocking your system components turned into a big steaming pile of cowshit. After almost 3 years it STILL doesn't do a damn thing right.
  • Purevideo - Ahhh I remember how excited I was when Purevideo was announced. Being big into watching movies through my HTPCs I was really stoked about it. But then they made the brilliant move to begin CHARGING for it. Let's make our customers pay $600 for a video card and then charge for one of the touted features. And installing and making PureVideo functional is still a hackjob although when it works it is awesome.

If they put half the effort into their driver and software development team that they do for the actual silicon things would be so much better. Who the bloody fuck is dropping the ball here???


And no I'm no ATI fanboy... I've been using nVidia cards exclusively since... well... forever, and you'll pry them from my cold dead hands only. :p
 
Methadras said:
I understand that you are on the bleeding edge of speed when it comes to video output, however, you are also in the 99.5 percentile of those that can afford this type of setup. Granted, I understand that I this will ultimately devolve into a class warfare, rich guy/poor guy type of discussion (I hope not), but for the most part you have two things going against you on these types of purchases. The first is software, still bloated, still behind in capabilities to take on such hardware horsepower and if they do, they invariably don't do it it well. Also, a hardware solution of this type doesn't force software developers to optimize and debloat their software, so instead they cram their stuff to fit the fastest hardware and I think in a lot of ways, a guy like you promotes that unwittingly and unwillingly.
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Amen brother... Amen.
 
Dan_D said:
It is quite simple. Guys like me who buy the fastest configuration possible most of the time will buy three cards instead of two when thier next generation parts are released. So basically they've probably sold three cards to most people who embrace SLI and always have. NVIDIA has been selling me high end cards two at a time for a few years now. So now they want to sell me three at a time.
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Oh boy, they better be giving you some kind of bulk discount for that :p


Three way SLI has no purpose for me, especially when you take into account deminishing returns and potential bottlenecks, oh and don't forget obsolescence. 2 or 3 cards are most likely going to be out performed by a next gen part anyway. Aside from the whole e-penizzle thing, it's nice to be able to say "oh yeah I got this sick three way going on at home all the time!"

If NVidia made it so your gains are proportional to the number of cards you have, and SLI just worked out of the box all the time, then it would definitely be something a lot more people would look at.

And regarding NV's next gen part, I'm still not used to the whole cycle thing. Is it 18 months for next gen, 12 months for a refresh? Need reclarification, but still, I would have expected an 8900 like others on this board by now. Wishful thinking? Unrealistic? Meh.
 
I completely agree with Kyle and the community, but in the end Nvidia, Intel, and AMD are businesses.

Does everyone need a 300-400 dollar motherboard, no!
Does everyone need an intel QX9770 for 1400 dollars, no!

But if there is someone out there that will buy them, then let these companies create them. Do you think GM makes a ton of money off of Chevy cars, probably not, but they make a lot more money on cadillacs.

My main point is that a fool and his money are easily parted.
 
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