MultiGPU Update: Finding the True Halo with 4-way
by Derek Wilson on February 28, 2009 11:45 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Prices, Stutter and The Test
We've added our four new test cases to the price lineup. Naturally they are not cheap.
As we mentioned in the 3-way article, our experience with stutter increased with the number of cards. Two way seems to be the smoothest of the multiGPU options, and we ran into the most problems with 4-way. Both AMD and NVIDIA showed some stuttering in Crysis, and there were issues in other games where scaling didn't happen the way we would have liked. Honestly, gamers who choose 4-way options will need to be hands on to get the best experience, disabling SLI and CrossFire when they get in the way of themselves.
Thus the price to pay for these solutions is not just higher in terms of money, but higher in terms of the effort needed to maintain a positive experience. NVIDIA gives us options to entertain ourselves by using some of our hardware for PhysX rather than SLI if SLI doesn't happen to work out as well as expected. This is definitely a plus at the very high end, as simply disabling hardware completely is dissatisfying in light of the cost.
Our test system is the same as it has been for the previous articles.
| Test Setup | |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-965 3.2GHz |
| Motherboard | ASUS Rampage II Extreme X58 |
| Video Cards | ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 4850 CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4850 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 SLI NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 SLI NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 SLI NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+ SLI NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 core 216 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+ |
| Video Drivers | Catalyst 8.12 hotfix ForceWare 181.22 |
| Hard Drive | Intel X25-M 80GB SSD |
| RAM | 6 x 1GB DDR3-1066 7-7-7-20 |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1 |
| PSU | PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 1200W |
And now on with performance.
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JonnyDough - Tuesday, March 3, 2009 - link
Could you please take the time to ask NV why the heck nTune crashes systems so easily? I can't even boot into Windows right now because I set up my profile to start my 8800GTS 640's fan on 100%. I can't hear it and I prefer my card to run cool, especially with NV's known heat issues. It might not be their fault though...FoxConn hasn't updated my bios in about 3 years, even though NewEgg sold me my motherboard about a year and a half ago.JonnyDough - Tuesday, March 3, 2009 - link
I should point out that was coming from the standpoint of you mentioning NV driver issues. I've had more trouble running older games and stuff. They sacrifice stability and game compatibility for high frame rates in newer games. It's pathetic. I don't want to buy a card to play all the latest games. I buy it to play my slightly older games at what is now good frame rates with all the goodies. Most people DO NOT STAY ON THE BLEEDING EDGE NVIDIA. GET A CLUE!SiliconDoc - Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - link
Your first mistake was thinking you know better than the top gpu maker and their manufacturing partners, and had your hissy fit to crank your fan out on lame years old games - because you're a worry wart and think nvidia would send out overheating cards - even on your far less than cutting edge slow and cool games.Then we have the obious - the very high temp red cards, that COOK HUMAN SKIN when you touch the HS and run at 70C plus often - and you found it in your whine to claim NV has "known heat issues".
LOL
It is just amazing.
Razorbladehaze - Monday, March 2, 2009 - link
Hey thanks for the extra input on the image quality and addressing this post. Furthermore I hear you in regards to adoption of the tech being most important part GPGPU computing. I just hope that both ATI and nVidia can come together on this one for the consumer.I enjoy reading your articles and think Anand puts out some quality stuff. I also appreciate you addressing some of the comments posted. Keep up the excellent work.