NVIDIA SLI Performance Preview with MSI's nForce4 SLI Motherboard
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 29, 2004 5:06 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Counterstrike: Source VST Performance
With Half Life 2 less than a month away, performance under the Source VST is very important.
At 1024 x 768 the performance is already pretty impressive, but with SLI it is skyrocketed into a completely new level with the 6800GT showing a 23.8% increase in performance and the 6600GT going up by around 54%.
It's impressive to see that at 1024 x 768 with 4X AA the 6800GTs in SLI mode are still CPU limited by the fastest AMD chip on the planet.
At 1280 x 1024 we see something quite unusual, the 6800GT gains much more from SLI than the 6600GT. The 6800GT received a 63.5% performance boost from SLI while the 6600GT gets "only" a 45.7% improvement; given the beta nature of the drivers we'll avoid hypothesizing about why.
At 1600 x 1200 the performance gains peak just under 70%.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
84 Comments
View All Comments
ImJacksAmygdala - Friday, October 29, 2004 - link
Thanks for the article.I think I will skip the nforce3 and nforce4 boards. I hear that there will even be HT problems with the Nforce4 AO3 silicon and I don't feel like rolling the dice with any other problems.
I;m not sold on SLI anymore either. I have the cash for it, but I'm considering the extra cost of 2 high end cards instead of just getting the latest and greatest every 1.5 to 2 years. I'm concerned about the extra heat and noise aswell.
I would have much rather had Sound Storm than SLI. I think I will just wait and see if a Dolby Live 5.1 encoding sound solution shows up before I upgrade to a AMD64 system. Intel has Dolby Live 5.1 encoding so maybe Creative will soon too.
Lord Banshee - Friday, October 29, 2004 - link
Can you please test Spec ViewPref 7.1.1 or above with the next SLI mobo you test. Alot of us 3D modelers want to know if SLI will benifit.CrystalBay - Friday, October 29, 2004 - link
GJ Anand, you scooped everyone (other review sites) again... :)bob661 - Friday, October 29, 2004 - link
mrdudesirSee #34.
mrdudesir - Friday, October 29, 2004 - link
I dont get why everyone is bitching about the added cost for people who dont want it. There is no added cost if you dont want SLI. Just buy a board based on the NF4 Ultra Chipset. ITs the exact same chipset just with no SLI. In fact if anything SLI lowers the price because it leaves a new top of the line chipset so that the NF4 Ultra doesn't have to be the absolute best and hence it is cheaper.nserra - Friday, October 29, 2004 - link
I already had a dual voodoo2 SLI, and besides the extra speed (and not always), no more....This is not that brilliant:
1st - Need motherboard support and a special/specific one (voodoo2 didn’t)
2nd - Doesn’t bring anything new features besides extra speed (play at 1280x1024 instead of 1024x768?)
3rd - More heat and power requirement.
4th - The driver must support the game (I don’t know if voodoo2 also needed this)
5th - It will prolong your PC how? Does the SLI 6600GT have the same functionalities/features of future products (NV50) don’t think so.
6th – Price, price, price …..
7th – Voodoo2 also had a version of SLI in a single board, a much cleaver solution, for the immediate since every board would accept it.
8th - I bet there will be games incompatibles (voodoo2 had to disable SLI in some games in order to work/play)
….
Reflex - Friday, October 29, 2004 - link
#35: If you do not wish to use the second slot for graphics, it is still a fully functioning PCI Express slot you can use for *anything* else, so it is not wasted board space at all.Reflex - Friday, October 29, 2004 - link
#9: There will be no add in SoundStorm solution. The group that developed that technology at nVidia has been dissolved and moved on to other projects.Just as well, it was not a quality solution anyways.
bob661 - Friday, October 29, 2004 - link
The hardware does exist. You can buy 6600GT's right now on Newegg.haris - Friday, October 29, 2004 - link
SLI is an option on the motherboard. Great. SLI might work because of the driver, but doesn't the hardware have to exist for the feature to be used in the driver?What if Nvidia/ATI have to use up valuable board space for a feature that will only be used by high end users, this means that everyone else is paying for a feature that they don't want or will never use. I don't like the idea that I might be paying extra for my card because one person out of ten thousand (or whatever the % of high end to average users is) wanted that feature.