X-bit labs

Started by: jc456 | Date 02/25/05

Comments: 21 | Last Comment:  04/18/07

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1. fisrt post! good article...but it is wrong to say SLI is too expensive..buy an ultra and in a years time get another one for 250 euros...and by then there should not be any stability and compatibility problems

Such upgrade strategy may not work.

"NVIDIA’s innovation also proved to be most fastidious about the installed cards – only two identical cards from the same manufacturer would work together. We couldn’t make two GeForce 6600 GT from different makers work in the SLI mode, despite their having identical characteristics and the necessary connector."

2. The 6600's suffer from 128bit memory bus and will always display the biggest performance hit when resolution and eye candy goes up.

I would like to see ATI's take on multiple GPU rendering and more mature video/system chipsets prior to dumping over $1000 into the beast.

3. That was a bit long, but a good article.

I guess we have to wait for Nvidia's 2nd generation SLI to iron out the limitations for its current SLI generation. (It doesn't seem any different from dual CPU or dual core...Both technologies are highly reliant on software optimised for it).

One thing to note, there was no mention of the Nforce Pro (Workstation/server variant of Nforce 4 line).

Tyan is one of the first mobo makers (possibly the only atm), to implement a true dual 16x SLI configuration.

Of course, the motherboard is marketed for Opterons and targeted for workstations. Hence, very expensive and not for enthusiasts. It also supports dual-core, so you could possibly qualify it as a "dream machine" setup. :)

We tend not to make judgements about hardware we do not have.
You should keep in mind that in case of professional applications (e.g., workstations) NVIDIA Quadro products will be used along with appropriate drivers (with its own optimisations) and software.

You mean like the 'optimizations' NVIDIA used to cripple nForce4 Ultra and try to squeeze $20 more for the SLI chips? NVIDIA has been using the uniform driver model for a long time, so any improvements made for the professional line is bundled in the same drivers as the regular products. Besides, it isn't first time the company trying to sell 'higher grade' product that costs nothing extra to produce.

I mean the optimisations for professional software in addition to dual PCI Express x16. Quadro boards are not intended for games.

By the way, high-end nForce4 SLI and Ultra mainboards are likely to support AMD's desktop dual-core chips.

4. why x800xt is faster than x850xt ?

The X850 XT PE is using a P4 560 and not the A64 4000+. Kind of pointless to even include it as it isn't even remotely a good comparison except to show that A64s are better than P4s for gaming.

5. Wow, no Farcry benchmarks?!? That's like a big red "X" right there. Also were you guys not allowed to update the bios of the ASUS SLI board to allow for X850 XT testing? If it would have added a week or two to the testing time we could have waited.

You should have read the article:

"At first we wanted to use the same games as in our mega-roundup of the graphics hardware made in 2004, but we were stopped at the capriciousness of the NVIDIA SLI platform. Particularly, the games from the list below either wouldn’t start at all or were unstable, hanging up regularly:

Unreal Tournament 2004
Far Cry
Shadow Ops: Red Mercury
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Manhunt
Lock On
Colin McRae Rally 04".

A number of articles are simultaneously in production, which is why we tend to use the most stable software, hardware and firmware for testing. At the time of testing the BIOS did not allow us to use ATI-base graphics cards.

6. ATI's design may not require hardware connectors to work, but load balancing uses bandwidth overhead to coordinate between chips and transferring frame buffer contents, so the PCI Express ports and chipsets going to be strained badly by the overhead.

7. Can someone please explain me why the idea of buying one 6600GT and second one later after a year or less is bad?
I'am talking about budget system... I can't afford spending 400$ on a VGA, 200$ is more appealing price to me.
Lets say that after a year I decide to upgrade my graphical subsystem and just buy the second 6600GT? I don't think that after a year or a half, the same brand vga would dissapear from the market, IMO it would be really cheaper and could give me a 50% boost in games. Moreover to this, I think that more and more games will support SLI.

Here are some quotes from the article with some additions:

1. "NVIDIA’s innovation also proved to be most fastidious about the installed cards – only two identical cards from the same manufacturer would work together. We couldn’t make two GeForce 6600 GT from different makers work in the SLI mode, despite their having identical characteristics and the necessary connector." Graphics cards evolve after time, particularly, BIOS versions may evolve.

2. "The problem is that besides the synchronization overhead and the lack of support of some games, the amount of graphics memory of two GeForce 6600 GT cards will remain 128MB, rather than 256MB, since the cards in the SLI mode have identical memory contents. This memory size isn’t appropriate for a high-performance solution intended for high resolutions and full-screen antialiasing..."

3. A year after you will be able to get a new mainstream board for $200 that has 2x performance of the GeForce 6600 GT and new features.

Thanks, I thought of these things, but just couldn't put together :) So if I buy a budget system, there is no point in SLI. I think I'll wait for AMR to show up, maybe it could be more reasonable in terms of price and performance.

Multi-GPU has always been feasible basically only for high-end applications. For mainstream this is not really a thing to watch, as for the price of two mainstream cards you can get one high-performance one with less driver-related issues.

8. Is the last graph (Painkiller FSAA 4X Aniso 16X) on page 18 really correct?I don't belive so.The Geforce 6800GT dropped fom 169 fps @ 1200*1024 resolution to 34 fps @ 1600*1200 resolution.

Thanks!
There was a typo that has been corrected.

9. no

10. I bought a hp with a 650 geforce, I installed a geforce 6800. Now it says, sli multi_gpu rendering has been disabled slimulty gpu rendering has been changed to independent gpu rendering because one of your sli cards has been removed sli multy gpu rendering requires two or more graphics cards

11. the game is boring if you dont have pure speed
but once i got it the game kick @$$

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