NVIDIA's GeForce 6 SLI: Demolishing Performance Barriers
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 23, 2004 10:23 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Half Life 2: AT_coast_12
The at_coast_12 benchmark begins to show GPU limitations earlier on in the resolution scale than the previous two tests; at 1280 x 1024 we start seeing some performance benefits to SLI, but the real win once again comes at 1600 x 1200. At 1600 x 1200 the 6600GT, once paired up in SLI mode, enjoys a 44% increase in performance which allows it to outperform a single 6800 Ultra by 10%. SLI mode also allows the 6800GT and 6800 Ultra to both achieve 100+ fps frame rates in this benchmark.
With AA/AF enabled all of the cards do extremely well; the 6600GT SLI configuration ends up being faster than a single 6800GT/Ultra, and the latter two cards manage to remain mostly CPU limited at resolutions up to and including 1600 x 1200.
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JClimbs - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
A few things glossed over in the 'upgrade path' argument:costly up-front mobo purchase. These boards will go down in price, but unless they're a total flop they won't drop nearly as much as a non-SLI board's price slope.
power supply. Lets face it, when you get around to running two cards, you will need to purchase a more robust PS than those sold with most cases. If you've already spent the cash on a high-quality PS, fine; but upgrade paths are generally not pointed at folks who spend big bucks on a PS.
Fans. Two GPUs under the hood will almost certainly want more cooling. Admittedly, they're cheap. Good thing...
Electric Bill. The power draw of today's Graphics Cards is already breathtaking. With two of 'em chugging away under the hood, that drain looks absolutely scary.
Ecmaster76 - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
Anyone want to bet that the two GPU's are using a hypertransport or derived interconnect. The bandwidth quoted is in the same neighborhood as an Athlon's, but probably a little faster since the trace lengths are short and straight.ChronoReverse - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
Pretty nice speed bumps, but the 6600GT sli is disappointing in how it seems to always lag behind even the 6800GT with high-resolutions and AA+AF enabled.ariafrost - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
SLI has a lot of potential, that's for sure... :D