Tri-SLI benchmarked

[Antar Bolaeisk]

Er, isn't this thread about tri-sli rather than Crysis?

Anyways, 819W, holy [insert appropriate deity].

The house lights would dim when that thing is turned on, heck, the house lights and the street lights in the entire estate would dim when that cranks up to full power.

Originally Posted by randal24 View Post
3 8800 Ultras = £900
1 Tri Sli Mobo = £200
1 1200W PSU = £150

The look on your face when you realise you still can't get and more than 40fps stable in Crysis... priceless.

The look on your face when you open up the electricity bill...priceless.

 

[19ninety]

opps

 

[19ninety]

aye thats just plain crazy, I mean CRAZY! my system (not massive) pulls 190 on full load.... I just cant get my head round a 1Kw system.... bonkers

Farcry runs fine on a Radeon 9600 Pro if you tone down the settings to medium and don't play at 1600x1200...

off topic again but farcry runs all max setting 1440x900 on my card and looks absolutely amazing @ awsome frames.
crysis demo wouldnt even run for me.

on topic. i guess the money loonies and hardcore pc dudes will always be doing stuff we think is pointless and cant justify, the same for the kids modding cars sticking *** on a saxo etc.

The reason why is never in these cases logic or sense, but just because.

Like sometimes in my head I want to get another 2nd hand BFG GS OC and stick it sli, I know I'll be disapointed with the performance, but its something I want to have done and tried (especially since i can get a used one for less then a nifty delivered)
OC'ing is about getting more for your money - high end mods are about money is no issue.

tri-sli is probably more about a bit of nvidia showmanship, letting people in the community know big graphics power is comming. If they only talked abou tit everyone would cuss cos its never released, and when they do releases it, everyone cusses cos its crazy.

IDK.

[EDIT] what the hell is wrong with N.O.S? And tit is ok, LOLZ!

 

[Azza]

Its so so tempting to go Tri GTX.

Uni pays leccy bill, what do I care.

 

[Arcane]

...and PC PER, bit-tech and Hot Hardware.

 

[Energize]

I wish they would put more time into developing a new card, than putting more cards in sli. It's not advancing technology at all, just stagnating it and costing loads. And each card they add yields diminishing returns.


Plus 728 watts is an insane amount of power for it to be using.

 

[19ninety]

Eventually heres going to come a point though, the most expensive part of any gaming build is the graphics card ... so when will there be component based cards, with changeable gpu's and memory etc. like a motherboard and a graphics board, cpu and gpu etc, surely theres a huge inbalance when you look at it, in the old days the cpu did most of the work, now with the demands of the games we play, i wonder if they have looked at incororating the graphics board into the motherboard, with slots to expand graphics functions, gpu, memeory and stuff alloff one board, or a second board that couldbe mounted in the base/tho of the case, maybe even casuing a overhaul of the current case style/size/shape, the GPX style =)

Ramble over

 

[3t3P]

wow KALIB'R that's quite a cool idea actually, then you just put on aftermarket coolers too as is per normal with CPU's...

 

[19ninety]

who knows, maybe in 3 years we'll be hyped up over the debut of the nVidia dual processor QC3.5ghz (quad code) GPU chip, but we'll be grumpy cos DDR6 memory expansions are £220 per GB and Crysis DX11 demo requires 2GB min graphics mem to play, probably still at 14fps cos it'll all be HD mapped photo realistic shaders or something, who knows huh.
Tri-SLi is effectivley a inefficient way of creating a triple processor graphics system with excess of 2GB DDR3 memory and multiple processors after all and surely theres only so far we can go with single traditional style graphics cards, although its a lot of fun getting the maximum for the technology we have which is why were here, OcUK!

 

[lay-z-boy]

Won't happen, the tolerances for components are so tight at the speeds they run and the power they draw that the speeds would drop considerably.

The asus p35 board that came with 2gb of ddr3 soldered onto the board directly was a good example of how fast things can get if they are soldered together instead of having slots etc.

 

[Saxon]

Three GFX cards is just stupid. The heat, the price, the power consumption, it's going beyond "fun" which is what gaming is all about. If gaming is going that way I think I'll just stick to playing games on a console like the PS3 and keep my PC for GFX work. At least then you know you're playing against people with a system similar to yours.

I can only just about afford one GFX, let alone 3. I can't see this working out, especially considering SLI isn't much cop.

 

[CyZMyAssBaby]

Its so so tempting to go Tri GTX.

Uni pays leccy bill, what do I care.

LoL

 

[HangTime]

Pretty good numbers for this, it certainly makes the prospect of high resolution gaming more plausible for those who have the budget.

I'm somewhat surprised to see so much negativity surrounding the Crysis scores though. Crysis performs incredibly slowly on single/dual card configurations, so what were people expecting, some kind of miracle 4x framerate from tri-sli? If there's one game where you need more power, it's Crysis, and Tri-SLI delivers (around 30-40% increase over SLI, or around 70% efficiency).

Judging it purely on one title would, of course, be foolish too. The loaded guys with 30" screens must be licking their lips at the prospect of massive boosts in most titles over the current best available setup (8800u-SLI).

 

[[ui]ICEMAN]

Yep I've been running 3 ultras since the first driver was released, made a huge difference for me @ 2560x1600, in all games, not just Crysis. To be honest with the price of the cards now, it's not even too outrageous cost wise, certainly not as bad as buying 2 cards on release which is what I tend to do each cycle.

 

[decimator]

I've got an SLI-capable motherboard and an 8800GTS, so I'd have to buy three new graphics cards, a new motherboard and a humungous PSU to do this...as opposed to just waiting for the 9800's (or whatever they're going to be called)...bit of a no-brainer really, isn't it? Also, for just about every game I'm into playing, I'm hearing way too much talk on the forums about drivers not working well enough for normal SLI, so why should we trust Nvidia to get them right for this?

 

[Arcane]

Yep I've been running 3 ultras since the first driver was released, made a huge difference for me @ 2560x1600, in all games, not just Crysis. To be honest with the price of the cards now, it's not even too outrageous cost wise, certainly not as bad as buying 2 cards on release which is what I tend to do each cycle.

Good point, 3 oem GTX's for £690 is actually not bad at all considering the £804 I paid for 2 7800gtx's at launch.

I've got an SLI-capable motherboard and an 8800GTS, so I'd have to buy three new graphics cards, a new motherboard and a humungous PSU to do this...as opposed to just waiting for the 9800's (or whatever they're going to be called)...bit of a no-brainer really, isn't it? Also, for just about every game I'm into playing, I'm hearing way too much talk on the forums about drivers not working well enough for normal SLI, so why should we trust Nvidia to get them right for this?

Not really a no-brainer, it depends on your needs and budget at the time. Nvidia's got something for everyone at the moment,from £150 to £1000, all of them great at the segment they're aimed at. As for SLI being flaky...well that's been discussed to death on here and it's always people who've never used it before (especially in xp) who claim it doesn't work properly.

 

[HangTime]

Yeah, since you only have a 8800GTS it's pretty obvious that you don't fall into the target marget. Tri-SLI is not aimed at people who are worried about shelling out cash on new kit, it is for people who want the best performance.

For loaded people building a new system from scratch it is a viable path, £700 for 3x GTX which gives a level of performance that you simply can't get anywhere else. Even 8800Ultra-SLI will get beaten by 8800GTX-TriSLI, and it's cheaper to boot!

Of course, you need a flashy PSU and decent case cooling, but then the guys who are spending £2k+ on a PC are not going to be stuffing it all in a tin with a Q-Tec.

The fact is, for people that want good performance in modern games at high resolution/settings, single card solutions simply don't have enough grunt. If I had a big monitor, 3x 8800u is the bare minimum I would attempt to play Crysis on.

 

[Lowra]

Yep I've been running 3 ultras since the first driver was released, made a huge difference for me @ 2560x1600, in all games, not just Crysis. To be honest with the price of the cards now, it's not even too outrageous cost wise, certainly not as bad as buying 2 cards on release which is what I tend to do each cycle.

Sensible way of looking at at I supose, ironic too but certainly cheaper.
Speak to u soon..