Triple SLI – Nvidia’s Next-Generation Ultimate Gaming Platform

[sushrukh]

Triple SLI – Nvidia’s Next-Generation Ultimate Gaming Platform

Nvidia Corp. not only plans to refresh its lineup of performance graphics accelerators this year, but also intends to introduce its 3-way SLI multi-GPU technology aiming extreme performance enthusiasts. But will the new triple SLI technology truly become a high-performance solution, or will share the destiny of Nvidia quad SLI?


According to a slide published by Expreview web-site, which is presumably from Nvidia Corp.’s roadmap, 3-way SLI is Nvidia’s new “ultimate gaming platform”, which will offer ultimate performance in three-dimensional games. ATI, graphics product group of Advanced Micro Devices, also plans to offer 3-way CrossFire multi-GPU technology, however, one of the graphics processing units (CPUs) in such configuration will be able to compute physics effects in case the game supports this capability.

Initially Nvidia plans to enable triple SLI support for the top-of-the-range GeForce 8800 GTX and Ultra graphics cards, however, eventually it may support 3-way configurations of other GPUs as well. Systems with three graphics cores will be powered by Nvidia nForce 680i as well as nForce 780i platforms with the former supporting PCI Express 1.1/1.0a, whereas the latter featuring PCI Express 2.0 along with a special “BR04” switch for more efficient multi-GPU operation.

http://www.techpowerup.com/img/07-09-29/trisli.jpg

Exact capabilities of 3-way SLI platforms were unclear at press time. However, the exact feature set will mostly depend on driver support. Besides, performance boosts over single- or dual-GPU configurations will also depend on drivers. Back in 2006, when Nvidia unveiled its 4-way SLI technology, actual systems featuring four GPUs could not offer leading performance in all games due to poor drivers. Currently quad SLI technology is not supported for Windows Vista and customers who paid over $1000 for graphics cards alone have to take advantage of only two GPUs instead of four.

[tyle6]

SLI is such a joke its not even funny anymore.
it sucks period. crossfire woops its ass performance wise. and whoever is writing Nvidias drivers needs to go back to school. i have never been so unimpressed with drivers ever. Nvidia please stop releaseing pointless hardware/software to market.
I guess the same can be said about microsoft. what good is hardware if neither the OS nor drivers support it/work.

[stlava]

I say bring em on! I want to see some benchmark results from one of those 3x configs.. But supported drivers would be nice too :lol:

[Scott]

Well before you bash NVIDIA look at VISTA. Microsoft made it so it did not work right and is still releasing hot fixes to the OS to keep graphics cards from crashing.

[tyle6]

yea, i guess MS really is the one at fault. I still feel SLI is inferior to crossfire though. still an Nvidia fanboy to the heart no matter what. just very unimpressed with SLI.I Love Nvidia cards though. i had a bad run with an ATI once and will never buy one again for myself. I got stuck with a x1650 for my P4 as thats all the store i was returning a broken 6600gt too had in stock.
All in All SLI needs to touted more as an upgrade path/super highend option more then a good idea to use two 8500gt's to game with.Even then you are still better off to upgrade to a single card solution if its possible due to the nature of SLI itself.

[peti1212]

Well I would like to see some benchmarks too. But imagine the heat that those three beast will make inside your computer. ayayay. Triple Water cooling for video cards? Maybe that would be a solution. :ahhhhh:

[Kougar]

Not to mention this is only for users that have no use or need for ANY PCI, PCIe 1x, or PCIe slots, since there will be no room left at all on just about any motherboard. :lol:

No disrespect towards Nvidia but Triple SLI isn't going to suddenly remove the problems Quad-SLI suffered from. And one big issue Quad-SLI faced in particular was bad or problematic driver support, especially for some games. Nvidia is in hot enough water as it is for drivers already, but when Quad-SLI was around they couldn't get it running smoothly with only Windows XP to worry about. ;)

[peti1212]

Sometimes I even feel as if my SLI is not fully working as it should sometimes. That's what I don't like about SLI. I would actually go with a really powerful video card and only have one of them.

[zachig]

Like Scott said, I think it's mainly Microsoft problem that SLI is not working as it should, mainly when talking about VISTA. :frown:

But I'm pretty sure, as time passes, VISTA will get better and we'll see an improved performance of SLI. ;-)

Now...I personally think that the SLI Multi-GPU is a GREAT idea, as long as there will be games that will fully-support it. :grin:

My main vision is to see a game that will FULLY use the potential of 2 Graphic Cards in SLI, while using the 3rd one for the Physics Calculations (instead of the "dying" (???) AGEIA Physics Card...;-)) :icon_tiphat:

[tyle6]

if the card is going to used as a superpowerful physics engine then thats cool!!! if Nvidia has found a way to enable physics support on the third card that would be awesome!!!!
So what board would be supporting this?> only 680i boards with the third running at 8x?

[peti1212]

I only know one game that actually uses a bunch of phisics engine in it, which is that one game you can get for free. Other than that I don't see the need for a phisics GPU. Would it actually give some performance increase if it would be a phisics GPU?

[AJ.]

IMO, sli isn't worth the cost of two cards to be worth the cost of three. I'd rather wait for a superior gpu to be released and buy that. The latest and greatest gpu on the market will always run the latest games with no problems.

The only thing that makes people want sli is having the biggest badest pc at lan parties, a.k.a. ePenis.

[the_dope_chaud]

so thats 400 bucks a card plus a high end motherboard at 200 a pop thats 1400 bucks, great economic solution. just cut the chase and release some better single card solutions, and some DECENT mid-range cards.

[sushrukh]

if the card is going to used as a superpowerful physics engine then thats cool!!! if Nvidia has found a way to enable physics support on the third card that would be awesome!!!!
So what board would be supporting this?> only 680i boards with the third running at 8x?

Both the Nvidia nForce 680i as well as nForce 780i will support this Tyle.

[zachig]

I only know one game that actually uses a bunch of phisics engine in it, which is that one game you can get for free. Other than that I don't see the need for a phisics GPU. Would it actually give some performance increase if it would be a phisics GPU?
First of all, there's more than one game that supports a Physics Card, like GRAW (Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter), but of course, there are not too many games that support it...:frown:

That why I said it is a GREAT idea to use a Multi-GPU setup, but only if game developers will develop more (much more...) games that will use AND BENEFIT from it...:icon_tiphat:

[sushrukh]

Ya, Valve has included Physics support is the HL2-LC & HL2-Episode 2.Not many games have Physics support currently but it's growing.ID Software has announced that it'll employ Physics in Quake 5.UT3 has already been announced with Physics support.So, the number of games are getting bigger.

[Kougar]

Triple SLI is not another name for SLI+GPU physics, the article seems pretty clear that this was not the old rehash of GPU physics. Triple SLI just SLI with one more card...

Just because a game has Physics doesn't mean it is supported by anything. A GPU will not run the physics in Half Life games just as a PPU won't either, the physics are only written for CPU use. UT3 looks to be built with PPU support, so again no GPU physics there either, and beats me what Q5 will use. I don't know of any major games that use "Havok FX" engine which is built for GPU use, and regular "Havok" engine is for physics created on the CPU.

[PP Mguire]

I look at it this way, if SLI is a joke what makes them thing that we wont snicker even more at 3xSLI? Seriously, and its not just Microsoft either. SLI is still a joke in Windows XP as well as Vista. So nope, no way to get around it there. Seriously, like ive said in 2 threads already. Nvidia need to stop screwing around and release their 9800GTX with PCI-E 2.0 and DX10.1 support. All these people have 8800s and nobody is going to want an 8700GTS. For the price its going to be, youd be better off buying an 8800 320mb anyways.

As far as Physics go, its still a flop. GRAW can be reprogrammed, and i bet you can do the same with UT3 when it comes out to use a seperate core for physics. So, a 3rd card of the Ageia or Nvidia/ATi kind is still pointless. But of course youll always have the "geniouses" who will want to put 3x 7950GX2s in there and try that :rolleyes: Seriously, stick with one card. it works better. Your e-penis cant really grow from your 3dmark score but your headaches in the end will be no where to be found.

[tomato]

*yawn* Triple-SLI is the next big thing now? What happened to quad-SLI? Scott himself had such a rig in the past if I remember correctly? :?

[Ranzear]

2x 88GTS will outperform a single Ultra at the same pricepoint and higher resolutions. Its all CPU limited below that anyway. Plus they actually fit in my case.

[PP Mguire]

2 8800s will outperform an Ultra in 3dmark. Not every game is optimized for SLI, and the ones that are dont utilize it correctly still.