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SLI V TRISLI RESULTS

widdyst

widdyst

widdyst

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Joined
5 Jan 2008
Posts
1,300
After deliberating wether or not to upgrade my old sli G92's I bit the bullet and got myself 3 EVGA GTX260's SC (192).
Now I hadnt originally planned to go TRI But these cards came available second hand, for a price I just couldnt refuse.
So Since installing I Have been doing some of my own benchmarking using fraps to see if it is of benefit for me to stay with TRI or just sell a card on and go SLI.
From the results I have got so far it would seem that TRISLI is of no benefit to me over SLI (1680 x 1050) And in some cases seems to hinder performance.
I am now considering selling one of the 260's and swapping out the e 8400 and going with a q9550 what do you think ?
I know a 24" monitor is needed so that goes on my want list too.
Only in the furmark benchmark did TRISLI show a big difference But in actual gaming , No.
I knocked up a few little graphs for you guys to look at let me know what you think
crysistrivslimk3.jpg

warheadslivtrixy8.jpg

farcry2andcodwawslivtriat6.jpg
 
Yeah this is pretty much known, a single faster card is always your best bet, with SLI/crossfire you dont get as much additional performance as the card would suggest, and with the third yeah its pretty much unnoticable except in benchmarks
 
Those tri-sli scores are no better than sli!!

But there is a good reason. You probably know this already but the cpu is the limiting factor to the tri-sli.

For example, if you put just 1 gtx 260 with an i7 you would often see worse performance than a E8400 with a gtx 260 or something, but when you add another gtx 260 in a i7 rig you see sometimes DOUBLE the performance because the gpu is no longer a bottleneck. So its the cpu that limiting your frame rates.
 
engstrom0304 said:
Those tri-sli scores are no better than sli!!

But there is a good reason. You probably know this already but the cpu is the limiting factor to the tri-sli.

For example, if you put just 1 gtx 260 with an i7 you would often see worse performance than a E8400 with a gtx 260 or something, but when you add another gtx 260 in a i7 rig you see sometimes DOUBLE the performance because the gpu is no longer a bottleneck. So its the cpu that limiting your frame rates.
Click to expand...

Yes I thought the cpu would be a limiting factor here Thats why I was thinking about a q9550 BUT I dont really want to go splash the cash on this unless I could find some solid evidence it would improve things in this setup.
 
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95thrifles said:
Yeah this is pretty much known, a single faster card is always your best bet, with SLI/crossfire you dont get as much additional performance as the card would suggest, and with the third yeah its pretty much unnoticable except in benchmarks
Click to expand...

I am fully aware of the lowered benefits of using additional cards and to be honest I didnt expect to see TRISLI being any use at this res. Except With crysis maxed out and 16 x AA I had a feeling it would have shown an improvment here BUT no.
 
[Edit] - I'm wrong - the Diamond one does support TRI-SLi - new board![/Edit]
 
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Tri SLI will show very little gain unless you play at 2560x res and have a 4+gig CPU. I would say that selling one and getting a fast quad core would make most sense as it would let you get the most out of SLI, games like left 4 dead and and increasing number of new games see massive performance boosts from quad core and lastly but maybe most important the 260 lacks the VRAM to play games at the res and settings where tri SLI is actually useful.
 
I wouldn't bother selling the CPU if you're primarily gaming, i'd sell one of the cards AND your current screen and put it towards a good quality 24" monitor. That'll be the sweet spot for you and you'll notice MUCH better results with SLI than you are presently. If you're planning to keep the setup for a long period then perhap's a quad would make sense but then personally I'd be looking at i7 and that's £££'s.
 
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formby said:
Those benchmarks are stupid at that res who would game at that with SLI/TRI
Click to expand...

Thank you for your constructive input.

If you read my post properly you will see I have a 24" monitor in mind and am considering selling one of those cards and upgrading the processor, Also As my benchmarks prove nobody WOULD want to game at that res with TRISLI. Thats the whole point... .....! But I can tell you from experience that SLI at that res does make a big difference !
 
widdyst said:
After deliberating wether or not to upgrade my old sli G92's I bit the bullet and got myself 3 EVGA GTX260's SC (192).
Now I hadnt originally planned to go TRI But these cards came available second hand, for a price I just couldnt refuse.
So Since installing I Have been doing some of my own benchmarking using fraps to see if it is of benefit for me to stay with TRI or just sell a card on and go SLI.
From the results I have got so far it would seem that TRISLI is of no benefit to me over SLI (1680 x 1050) And in some cases seems to hinder performance.
I am now considering selling one of the 260's and swapping out the e 8400 and going with a q9550 what do you think ?
I know a 24" monitor is needed so that goes on my want list too.
Only in the furmark benchmark did TRISLI show a big difference But in actual gaming , No.
I knocked up a few little graphs for you guys to look at let me know what you think
crysistrivslimk3.jpg

warheadslivtrixy8.jpg

farcry2andcodwawslivtriat6.jpg
Click to expand...
Waste of time/money mate without an I7 setup as that does offer perfect scaling with multi GPU in some games.
 
AWPC said:
Waste of time/money mate without an I7 setup as that does offer perfect scaling with multi GPU in some games.
Click to expand...


Well I value your input mate and as far as a waste of money I dont think so Not if you knew what I paid for these cards :) .
And not really a waste of time......doing this has shown me that (already knew really just wanted to prove out) I definitely dont need that third card and so the word profit springs to mind :)
 
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