3 Way SLI - MultiCard setups Bah Humbug

yeah i dabbled a bit with tri-sli, but the overall heat that those cards generated and limited cooling they have with the spaced opted me to hold off on tri-sli for now. I will enjoy my 8800gtx sli setup for now as I realy only game now 40% of the time.
 
Justifire said:
Figured out it was something else :D
I used Transparancy AA -> Supersamples
With that turned on @ 2560x1600 4xaa 16xaf I get 40-45 fps
With transparnacy AA off i get constant 60+ (vsync)
Click to expand...

That would do it.
 
Got set up with Tri-SLI but I am having serious heat problems. I am worried that I may have fried :eek: one of my MSI Ultras. Going to be doing some additional work on it tonight and if I did that is a real bummer. :(:(

Will be putting in waterblocks this week for cards.

I did some 3dmark03 with my current CPU overclock early aftrer the installation and got some insane numbers:

93973
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=5707308

WWould like to get an OC on my new Stable OC 4.5ghz. (9650)

Now if they will give a blessed set of Vista Drivers and I will be #5 on the top 20.
 
For me I have a 24" Monitor- Id say some games justify tri sli but the only game that will see any benefit to me is Crysis to it- and this would be known...
But even if- I can say this as Spending money on Computers has become a regular to me now-

Im not able to justify TRI SLI for 3 simple reasons

The extra POWER needed, HEAT added, and Extra COST dont justify a 10-20% increase in "some games". Some games see a less than 5 % increase...

Heat is my major aspect there- Adding another 8800 Ultra to my WC loop would lower my OC quite a bit
 
btdvox said:
For me I have a 24" Monitor- Id say some games justify tri sli but the only game that will see any benefit to me is Crysis to it- and this would be known...
But even if- I can say this as Spending money on Computers has become a regular to me now-

Im not able to justify TRI SLI for 3 simple reasons

The extra POWER needed, HEAT added, and Extra COST dont justify a 10-20% increase in "some games". Some games see a less than 5 % increase...

Heat is my major aspect there- Adding another 8800 Ultra to my WC loop would lower my OC quite a bit
Click to expand...

The only reason they see such a low gain is that they are cpu-bound at those settings, i.e. the cpu can not spit out enough draw calls fast enough to keep the gpus from starving for workload. It is not some fundamental issue with 3-way sli not working, per say.

This isn't the case with all the next gen games (which are always in development), so a 3-way setup should scale well there, making it a product with some longevity.

That said, chances are next gen hardware will be out and blow away G80, so it wouldn't be worth buying into 3-way G80 if you wait too much farther into the future. That doesn't mean it won't be worth buying 3-way of the next gen product though, depending on the GPU-workload provided by the next gen games...
 
Yeah I know but if its CPU bottle necked with a QX9650 @ 4.2 , then i dont know what else will make a game GPU bottle necked
 
Sr7 said:
That said, chances are next gen hardware will be out and blow away G80, so it wouldn't be worth buying into 3-way G80 if you wait too much farther into the future. That doesn't mean it won't be worth buying 3-way of the next gen product though, depending on the GPU-workload provided by the next gen games...
Click to expand...

Depends on who you ask, the folks that currently have a tri-SLI setup all they need to do when the new shit comes is swap out thier cards. Its not like selling 3 8800GTX's would be difficult even if better is here they are still badass video cards.
 
btdvox said:
Yeah I know but if its CPU bottle necked with a QX9650 @ 4.2 , then i dont know what else will make a game GPU bottle necked
Click to expand...

Just more GPU-dependant games. They're not really in existence right now because developers don't base their games specs and performance around multi-gpu or 3-way potential. They base it around the majority of the market.

This is part of the reason there aren't typically "SUPER EXTREME SHADER" modes in games.. it's not worth their time or QA efforts for the small number of people who can actually play it at those settings.

This is why very high resolutions/AA/AF are currently the only real way that games scale with 3-way or more gpus. Hopefully we get some higher res monitors out there on the market with smaller pixels. Should look sexy as hell.
 
Sr7 said:
This is why very high resolutions/AA/AF are currently the only real way that games scale with 3-way or more gpus. Hopefully we get some higher res monitors out there on the market with smaller pixels. Should look sexy as hell.
Click to expand...
You really want higher resolutions than is available with 30" displays? Well, WQUXGA (3840x2400) resolutions have been available since 2001 in 22", and the pixels are so small that they're invisible at standard viewing distances. I always believed that 22" was just too petite for that kind of resolution. WQUXGA requires dual dual-link DVI.

There are rumors of a 3840x2400 res in a 30" panel might be released (hopefully) late this year or maybe sometime in '09. However, I seriously doubt there will be any video architecture on the market that can push 9.9 megapixels at appreciable FPS/IQ for the next few years. I would just stick with 2560x1600 (or smaller) for gaming and leave the WQUXGA displays for photo editing.
 
APOLLO said:
You really want higher resolutions than is available with 30" displays? Well, WQUXGA (3840x2400) resolutions have been available since 2001 in 22", and the pixels are so small that they're invisible at standard viewing distances. I always believed that 22" was just too petite for that kind of resolution. WQUXGA requires dual dual-link DVI.
Click to expand...

If im not mistaken a dual, dual link DVI connection would rule out any SLI config being compatible.
 
Dan_D said:
At present SLI is incapable of doing that.
Click to expand...

Wait, what? Sorry i just switched back to Nvidia recently but are you saying that with SLI you can have multiple connections or would a dual dvi connection work differently than having 2 monitors?

Did i miss something?
 
pfunkman said:
Wait, what? Sorry i just switched back to Nvidia recently but are you saying that with SLI you can have multiple connections or would a dual dvi connection work differently than having 2 monitors?

Did i miss something?
Click to expand...
I think what they meant is you can't output SLI to more than one display, yet. Since a WQUXGA display requires two dual-link connectors, it's ruled out of SLI compatibility by default. This is an oversimplification but I'm certain someone will elaborate on the technical details on why it can't be done with today's architectures. So, no T221 Tri-SLI fest. ;)
 
APOLLO said:
I think what they meant is you can't output SLI to more than one display, yet. Since a WQUXGA display requires two dual-link connectors, it's ruled out of SLI compatibility by default. This is an oversimplification but I'm certain someone will elaborate on the technical details on why it can't be done with today's architectures. So, no T221 Tri-SLI fest. ;)
Click to expand...

But, as I recall, can't you still have two cards in your case, but each simply outputs to a different display? Thus, if this required two dual-link connectors, could it be treated as two displays? If then it could, would you be able to link two gpu's into it, each dealing with a different part of the screen, hence actually decreasing the resolution that each gpu must contend with and thus making good gaming performance feasible? It's a long shot, and I doubt it works that way, else I think such displays would have caught-on for gaming a lot better than they have (and displays as we know them might well be designed differently- high-end ones anyway).
 
TerranUp16 said:
But, as I recall, can't you still have two cards in your case, but each simply outputs to a different display? Thus, if this required two dual-link connectors, could it be treated as two displays? If then it could, would you be able to link two gpu's into it, each dealing with a different part of the screen, hence actually decreasing the resolution that each gpu must contend with and thus making good gaming performance feasible? It's a long shot, and I doubt it works that way, else I think such displays would have caught-on for gaming a lot better than they have (and displays as we know them might well be designed differently- high-end ones anyway).
Click to expand...
Honestly, I don't really know. I don't have a WQUXGA display. I don't know if anyone ever reported trying SLI or Crossfire with such a ridiculous resolution. There have been some people in the displays forum that posted their setups and who own them, but I can't recall if they gamed on these beasts. Probably not, given this was a few years ago and nothing from NVidia or ATI could approach the performance required to move 9 Mpixels a few video generations ago. Search is down too, otherwise I would look for the threads.
 
Hold on a second, my memory just came up with something I recall reading a while ago. Don't the Quadro cards support multiple monitor SLI? They might actually do the trick for SLI and these displays. Mind you, in order to play decently with a Quadro, you need to get one of the higher end versions and then two of those. That's a huge amount of cash just for the cards, plus the cost of the monitor itself... I think I'll stick with my 30" ACD.

Boy has this thread really gone OT...
 
pfunkman said:
Wait, what? Sorry i just switched back to Nvidia recently but are you saying that with SLI you can have multiple connections or would a dual dvi connection work differently than having 2 monitors?

Did i miss something?
Click to expand...

No no. You can't have multiple monitor connections active while SLI mode is enabled. It is physically impossible at present.
 
APOLLO said:
Hold on a second, my memory just came up with something I recall reading a while ago. Don't the Quadro cards support multiple monitor SLI? They might actually do the trick for SLI and these displays. Mind you, in order to play decently with a Quadro, you need to get one of the higher end versions and then two of those. That's a huge amount of cash just for the cards, plus the cost of the monitor itself... I think I'll stick with my 30" ACD.

Boy has this thread really gone OT...
Click to expand...

I have heard that they do but I've never tried that. I don't have access to any of the newer Quadro cards so I'm not sure. Even if they do they are physically different than their Geforce counterparts.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top