EVGA Announces New 4-Way SLI Platform

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EVGA is proud to announce the world’s first 4-way SLI capable setup, the EVGA GTX 285 Classified and X58 Classified 4-Way SLI, but the innovative features do not stop there. Everything on the GTX 285 Classified is designed for the extreme enthusiast, from the 8 Phase Digital PWM to the X-Cool Switch and Dedicated Voltage readpoints! These features and more allow you to do what matters; get the most from your hardware.

In addition to this innovative graphics card, EVGA is also announcing the EVGA X58 Classified 4-Way SLI Edition, this motherboard has an impressive 7 PCIe Expansion slots allowing you to combine up to 4 EVGA GTX 285 Graphics cards for extreme performance! Important note: a case with 9 or more expansion slots is required, 10 for 4-Way SLI.
 
My question is, what are you going to do with 4 x SLI exactly when a $100 video card will play some games at 2560!
 
Having 2 cards in SLI or Xfire, certainly enhances gameplay in high-res, at least in my experience.

But I hardly believe the performance gains of a 4-Way SLI would be worthy of the hefty cost.
 
First? I thought 2x 9800GX2 would do this.

Oh. Four discrete cards. Silly. I have two GTX285s and have yet to encouter a title that does not totally rock on this setup, even on my "dated" core2quad rig.
 
wow, they really fudged the form factor.... you need a 10 (YES 10) slot case to use quad in this thing.
 
Thats gonna need a killer PSU !!
Each original unclocked GTX285 is approx 180W max.
So thats 720w just for the gfx cards - unclocked!
You will probably need 150W+ for the system and then extra for overclocking.
So this system is realistically pushing 1KW actual power use when clocked and gaming/running F@H.
If you can ever use the 600W available just for the CPU, this system will be pushing 1.5KW actual power used !!!!!

There is no power supply available to give you a 50% headroom even at 1KW power usage.
There will probably be newer PSU's available just for this system.
 
I'm actually thinking of getting one of these. My question is if this will work with the 6 core i9 coming Q1 or Q2 next year.
 
Nenu said:
Thats gonna need a killer PSU !!
Each original unclocked GTX285 is approx 180W max.
So thats 720w just for the gfx cards - unclocked!
You will probably need 150W+ for the system and then extra for overclocking.
So this system is realistically pushing 1KW actual power use when clocked and gaming/running F@H.
If you can ever use the 600W available just for the CPU, this system will be pushing 1.5KW actual power used !!!!!

There is no power supply available to give you a 50% headroom even at 1KW power usage.
There will probably be newer PSU's available just for this system.
Click to expand...

Umm, the Ultra X3 1600W will do the trick
 
Nenu said:
Thats gonna need a killer PSU !!
Each original unclocked GTX285 is approx 180W max.
So thats 720w just for the gfx cards - unclocked!
You will probably need 150W+ for the system and then extra for overclocking.
So this system is realistically pushing 1KW actual power use when clocked and gaming/running F@H.
If you can ever use the 600W available just for the CPU, this system will be pushing 1.5KW actual power used !!!!!

There is no power supply available to give you a 50% headroom even at 1KW power usage.
There will probably be newer PSU's available just for this system.
Click to expand...

You can wire PSU's together. I am using two 400 watt PSU's wired together on one of my gaming rigs. I could wire in a couple more if I really wanted to.
 
Ockie said:
Umm, the Ultra X3 1600W will do the trick
Click to expand...

50% headroom was probably the wrong way to say it, I meant that if you like your PSU to run at 50% max when the PC is at full load, a 1KW system will need a 2KW PSU !
You are right though, the Ultra x3 should suffice (and last) at 1KW.
Now 1.5KW...
 
DaedalusHelios said:
You can wire PSU's together. I am using two 400 watt PSU's wired together on one of my gaming rigs. I could wire in a couple more if I really wanted to.
Click to expand...

Yep, this would be my method too, I've used it successfully on a number of systems.
 
This board is just a big e-penis board.

I mean, really? Four dual-slot cards? Two of Asus new GTX 295 that are really dual 285s would do the same thing in two dual-slot cards. And a serious OCer will use water cooling (or something more exotic,) and water cooling blocks for GTX 285s are available in the single-slot variety; so a conventional four-x16-slot board would work fine. (And for all their extreme-ness, you'd think it would use nF200 chips to allow for "four real x16" slots. Although I disagree with that terminology when using the nF200 chip, it would allow for even more e-penis waving.)

And WTF? 600W of power just for the CPU? Uh.... Good luck spitting 600W into an i7! Even with LN2, you're not going to get an i7 to accept more than 300W of power.

Finally, their GTX 285 needs *THREE* 6-pin PCI-e power connectors? THREE?!?!? An 8-pin plus a 6-pin wasn't good enough? That means you'd need 12 PCI-e power connectors to run their suggested 4-card setup.

Sorry, this is just beyond ridiculous. Any [H]-ers who buy this nonsense deserve to be demoted to 'newbie' on the forums. (Just like the 'tuners' who put multi-wings and massive body molding on their Civic, but leave it all primer-gray, and don't make any performance improvements to the engine.)
 
Quick math:

P=VI

Using hardforums power draw numbers, a system with 1xGTX285 pulls around 370w. Assuming the card pulls 200w, that is 800w for 4x285s and 66a off of the 12v rail.

The x3 is 1600w and 117a on the +12v rail. Perfect.
Actually the PC Power and Cooling 1.2Kw is 100a on the 12v rail. Assuming that the rest of the system wont blow over 100a, you should be fine!

Searching around on hardocp netted me with this data. An EVGA SSC GTX 285 is ~142w full load. That is 568w full load on 4x cards with 48a on the 12v rail.

I think more importantly the question should be how, not how many watts. You will need 8x 6pin PCIe power connectors. Not just that, although its possible, I would choose a single rail PSU over a multi rail as I dont know how each rail works for PCIe power.

Will it fit 5x GTX285s? Only way Ill buy one so I can use 1x GTX285 for physix!

And didnt someone make a PSU that was like 2KW that required two AC plugins on separate home circuits?(assuming your house is 120w@15a circuits)

Anyways, props to EVGA, although we have seen that multi GPU systems gain less and less performance for every GPU you add. Little late for GTX285s, but promising probably for 4xGTX380s?
 
I am saddened by this news. I thought my wallet would be able to rest for a little while without my e-peen cracking it open again. :sigh:
 
CharonPDX said:
This board is just a big e-penis board.

I mean, really? Four dual-slot cards? Two of Asus new GTX 295 that are really dual 285s would do the same thing in two dual-slot cards. And a serious OCer will use water cooling (or something more exotic,) and water cooling blocks for GTX 285s are available in the single-slot variety; so a conventional four-x16-slot board would work fine. (And for all their extreme-ness, you'd think it would use nF200 chips to allow for "four real x16" slots. Although I disagree with that terminology when using the nF200 chip, it would allow for even more e-penis waving.)

And WTF? 600W of power just for the CPU? Uh.... Good luck spitting 600W into an i7! Even with LN2, you're not going to get an i7 to accept more than 300W of power.

Finally, their GTX 285 needs *THREE* 6-pin PCI-e power connectors? THREE?!?!? An 8-pin plus a 6-pin wasn't good enough? That means you'd need 12 PCI-e power connectors to run their suggested 4-card setup.

Sorry, this is just beyond ridiculous. Any [H]-ers who buy this nonsense deserve to be demoted to 'newbie' on the forums. (Just like the 'tuners' who put multi-wings and massive body molding on their Civic, but leave it all primer-gray, and don't make any performance improvements to the engine.)
Click to expand...

Not that I think this motherboard is useful in any real world sort of, nor would I buy and build a system based on one even if I could afford it, but I thought it should be pointed out that this board does indeed have an NF200 chip on it. In fact, it has two of them like the ASUS P6T7 Supercomputer, so you would get real (fake) 4XSLI at X16 speed assuming you filled the slots correctly.

Yes, I am a newbie here on these forums as far as posting is concerned. This may be my first post, actually. I am, however, a longtime reader of [H]ard|OCP and have been reading on the forums here for a while as well.
 
Cool beans, Steve, maybe now I will be able to play GTA maxed out at 55FPS while keeping myself warm in winter...
 
I can't wait to see the benchmarks on this thing.

I dunno, the diminishing returns with 3-way SLI could in no way justify its cost. I wonder if there are even greater diminishing returns with 4-way SLI, or if somehow it yields performance gains that could justify the insane pricetag.
 
Can't wait for the reviews, I'm betting at 'least two or more games end up performing worse on 4-way SLI because of drivers. :p
 
This seems utterly pointless. I also said the same thing about 3-way. SLI that is. :D
 
Methadras said:
This seems utterly pointless. I also said the same thing about 3-way. SLI that is. :D
Click to expand...

Utter rubbish, laddie. ;)

But yeah seriously what's the point when in two years you'll be able to buy a SINGLE GPU that will be 500% faster for 1/4th the price???
 
More than the insane power supply or money cost issues, it's the "diminishing returns" thing.

With a certain other platform's lowest common denominator effect holding back the PC versions of most games, I just don't see the point.
 
Serpico said:
I can't wait to see the benchmarks on this thing.
Click to expand...
Click the link in the article. These parts were used by K|ngp|n and Shamino to break all the Vantage records. Sure it's all LN2 cooling... but if you want benchmarks, there they be.
 
Might set off a breaker with this extreme of a setup. You'll need a 1200+ wattage power supply to handle. Maybe even dual 1000watt power supplies to keep it all stable.
 
can anyone say 4x GTX 295's for a 8 gpu set up.....Diablo 2 at 1440X900 would look SWEET>
 
Fail

Seriously someone who is spending $1600 dollars on graphic cards (the higher end 285s cost 400+ which where evga will be placing them), as well as a 400 for a motherboard...

will be watercooling, no way with half a brain is going to place 800 watts of gpu power right next to each other with each graphic card blocking the other graphic card fan. Thus making these cards with air coolers just adds to the waste.
 
This has reached preposterous/ridiculous/downright retarded levels.

I doubt NASA has a use for this.
 
robble said:
This has reached preposterous/ridiculous/downright retarded levels.

I doubt NASA has a use for this.
Click to expand...

Most of the stuff Steve posts is for shock value. You can't deny that it sells lol.:D
 
I'm a bit confused on the case requirement. The board has 7 slots, and a 2-slot graphics card in the bottom slot would bring the total required for 4-way SLI to 8 slots needed on the case. Where did they get 10?
 
Look at where the first PCI-express slot begins. It's about ~1 lower compared to the other boards. So that means that one case slot is 'empty'. Since the last video card will overhang on the last PCI-express slot, an additional case slot is recommended to keep it from sliding out of place.
 
A board that gives my Rampage II Extreme feelings of inadequacy?

Is there any advantage to having 2x 8pin power connectors on the board, or 3x on the video card? I mean, I have a Corsair HX1000 and it couldn't run such a beast equipped like that, by itself. I don't even think it HAS 2x 8pin motherboard adapters, not to mention all the required PCI-E connectors.

I expect that only a handful of cases could handle something like this. My Armorsuit has 10 slots.
 
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