Topic: [Frontpage News]3-Way SLI Is Here In A Big Way

[Zeus]

3-Way SLI Is Here In A Big Way

We have just finished playing with some 3-Way SLI (Tri-SLI as I like to call it) and have posted up some concrete gaming performance numbers for your viewing pleasure.  This system was awesome to work with as it was stable, offered better performance than I thought it would and was easy to set up.  The only downside is all the hardware that you'll have to buy to really enjoy this system.  If you've got the cash, it's worth it though.  Take a look at our review for all the details.

The truth is, 3-Way SLI is downright awesome though.  To put three cards in a system, draw over 700W from the tower alone and play games at maximum detail at 2560x1600 is a wonder to behold.  The platform is stable, has great driver support and was absolutely painless to setup.  Really, there is nothing bad to say about it - other than price. . .

Please post any comments, questions and all your feedback right here!   

[Luvlyan]

"Total cost of TRi-SLi = $3323USD (est.) "

Holy smokes, Batman!

I'm surprised that the system could run Tri-SLI on a Zalman 850W PSU. I thought Nvidia recommended a minimum of 1100W!

[Zeus]

The truth is, you'll also need a $1200 monitor (30 inch) to enjoy the benefit of SLI.  If you noticed in the review, we had the Ultra Power Partner 325W PSU running the third card.  All while measured wattage was below 800W, it would really stress a PSU for day-in and day-out usage.  All together we had 1175W available for the system.

[Seeker]

I'm still running a 6800 gt oc in agp.... this would be a very expensive upgrade for sure... lol... But really is this just for the bragging rights?? I don't think that I would go to this extreme. I think that the vid card manufacture should go back to the single vid card... Would be nice to have, but this setup is for the limited crowd not for the usual gamers... 

[sinthyex]

3-Way SLI is already old news, what i want to see is 6-Way SLI with 3 x GeForce 9800 GX2.
That's 6x8800GTX cores on a single motherboard. Doable? Fantasy? We now already that 9800 GX2 is on it's way.

[Zeus]

We're already seeing CPU limitations with 12GHz of CPU on three "slow" 8800GTX cards.  Even with a 4GHz CPU, running 6 GPU cores in a system would not see great leaps in performance - even at 2560x1600 resolution.  Maybe at the 3840x2400 resolutions that AMD graphics cards support, but not at 2560x1600.