3-Way SLi Coming Soon

Guntizzle · #1 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007, 05:20 PM

Dual SLi too little? Quad SLi Overkill? Then We got some news for you

Quote:

Originally Posted by engadget

NVIDIA has finally announced that it's extended its SLI technology to allow for three-way setups, in addition to the usual two or four-way ones. That, the company says, should give you a 2.8x performance increase over a single GPU system, letting you crank up all the settings while accepting nothing less than a full 60 frames per second. That will come at a pretty hefty cost, of course, as you'll need three GeForce 8800 GTX or GeForce 8800 Ultra graphics cards, not to mention a PC capable of accommodating them.

full story:
3-Way NVIDIA SLI Takes Extreme Gaming to a Whole New Level

panic! · #2 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007, 05:29 PM

This is going to be for people with One hundred dollar bills shooting out their assholes right into their ego.

Heat, space, power consumption and price just don't seem to make this that worth while.

The Hybrid Crossfire ATi announced seemed pretty cool for the lower end.

SonicSpeed · #3 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007, 05:29 PM

The main problem with 3-way SLI is threefold (ironcally)

You won't gain a full 3x performance boost
It takes a boatload of power (which essentially grows exponentially)
Where are your expansion cards gonna go? No good sound card, no HD TV Tuner etc...

CoffeeShark · #4 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007, 05:38 PM

you'll have to move up to the newer mobos anyway, so you'll be looking at pci-x as the expansions, not pci.

so you could have 3-4 x16 graphics slots, then 2 or 3 pci-x 1x cards for expansion cards.

SonicSpeed · #5 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CoffeeShark

you'll have to move up to the newer mobos anyway, so you'll be looking at pci-x as the expansions, not pci.

so you could have 3-4 x16 graphics slots, then 2 or 3 pci-x 1x cards for expansion cards.

Just to point it out for you, PCI-X is already available, its mainly on Server Boards.

If I'm not mistaken the official shorthand for PCI Express is PCIe.
,

CoffeeShark · #6 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007, 06:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SonicSpeed

Just to point it out for you, PCI-X is already available, its mainly on Server Boards.

If I'm not mistaken the official shorthand for PCI Express is PCIe.
,

yes, i understand that it's already available.

What I was saying is that if you want triple or quad SLI or Crossfire, you'll be buying a new motherboard regardless, and those motherboards (not server) may not use PCI, but PCIe.

Of course, some DO still use PCI, so your old cards will be fine, even with 3 or 4 graphics slots, like the MSI K9A2 (AM2+). You'll just need a full tower case.

The problem then becomes how large the graphics cards are, because if you have double-slot width, you're SOL.

Dopefish · #7 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007, 06:41 PM

Yeah, PCI-X and PCI Express are entirely different things.

Craig · #8 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007, 08:05 PM

jeez...6 posts and not one menage joke.

we're slipping

Dopefish · #9 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007, 09:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Craig

jeez...6 posts and not one menage joke.

we're slipping

I already made my quote of the day. It's someone else's turn now.

CoffeeShark · #10 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007, 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Craig

jeez...6 posts and not one menage joke.

we're slipping

it's the only reason I came in the thread.