3 Video Card SLI Question
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 - 10:20pm
I was perusing a couple of system configurators a couple of weeks ago and saw that some systems now can be configured with up to three video cards? What is the advantage - do any games actually support this? Will all games get some advantage from this? Would it be better to just do dual SLI and spend the extra money on a higher end processor? I think I may be getting ready to pull the trigger on a new system so this is one of my many questions.
Thanks
Spy
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This probably won't help you. Normal SLI doesn't add that much for the average user, and this would do even less. I would imagine the overhead integrating the multiple gpu's would make any extra processing power essentially worthless.
shihonage wrote:
PSN: BoogleGWJYeah unless your going to go with a system that is not only sli but sli with the highest end cards you are probably better off just going with one really high end card. Not to mention the fact that going sli will mean you will want to makes sure you have a really, really beefy power supply to handle the load of both cards. You will also need to be ready for the fact that in 6 months there will be a new card out that will kick the crap out of the two cards you have in your system.
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Oh, don't forget the ridiculous heat generated that will essentially make all the card limit themselves to preserve temps except under the most extreme cooling setups.
shihonage wrote:
PSN: BoogleGWJSo dual SLI is the way to go eh... I am well aware of the ever continuing upgrade curve and I probably will not try to build this one myself - I always seem to have cooling issues when I do that. I built several systems in the past and I may do it again off the builds I have seen recently in the forums.
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Actually I think their saying no SLI at all is the way to go for most folks. I just recently tackled this question myself when I bulilt the PC I listed in the $1500 thread.
The general impression I get is that unless you're running a HUGE monitor (30"+) or several monitors at once, there isn't really a major need for more than one video card. Realistically it seems like the only reason to run 2 at a time is if you're bulding a rig to accomplish big benchmark numbers. For actual gaming it really doesn't seem necessary.
I opted for a motherboard that could support SLI but just went with a single 8800GT card. The results thus far have been amazing. If I want to dabble later with SLI or DDR3 RAM the board can support it, but frankly I'm VERY happy with the performance I've seen already.
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What board did you use?
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I picked up the GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3P. I actually got kind of lucky. I found the board at FRY's mislabeled for a board that was $40 cheaper. Picked it up for $100.
The board has 4 DIMM slots for DDR2 RAM and 2 slots for DDR3. It also has 2 PCIE slots.
"Fault always lies in the same place...with those foolish enough to lay blame"*
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Support for DDR2 and DDR3 on the same mobo piqued my interest.
I looked at the mobo pic on your link, only saw 4 sockets and wondered how they managed to dual purpose a pair of sockets for DDR3.
From Gigabyte's website it looks like the EP35-DS3P has two PCI-E slots and no support for DDR3 while the EP35C-DS3P version supports DDR3 (6 DIMM sockets), but only has one PCI-E slot?
You sure you bought what you think you bought?
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Actually, if you wanna be a real man, iBuyPower sells a prebuilt quad-sli....
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Hmm...I am confused. I'm at work so I'm not looking at the board right now but I could have sworn that it had 2 PCIE slots on it. It definitely has the DDR2 & DDR3 support.
I think the correct board is the GIGABYTE GA-EP35C-DS3R. Sorry for the confusion.
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Considering that dual card SLI or Crossfire configurations do little improvement at best, no improvement most often, and harm performance at worst, I figure 3 would be the same. There is hardly any software designed for multiple Graphics card support. You are better off, and will come out with more money, if you invest in a good single card, bank the money you would spend on another card, and then upgrade in 2 years. 150-200 bucks on a single card now, and again in 2 years.
When you get a job at Pixar, then we can talk about SLI though.